Source: Semiconductor Industry Watch. At yesterday's Conputex conference, Dr. Lisa Su released the latest roadmap. Afterwards, foreign media morethanmoore released the content of Lisa Su's post-conference interview, which we have translated and summarized as follows: Q: How does AI help you personally in your work? A: AI affects everyone's life. Personally, I am a loyal user of GPT and Co-Pilot. I am very interested in the AI used internally by AMD. We often talk about customer AI, but we also prioritize AI because it can make our company better. For example, making better and faster chips, we hope to integrate AI into the development process, as well as marketing, sales, human resources and all other fields. AI will be ubiquitous. Q: NVIDIA has explicitly stated to investors that it plans to shorten the development cycle to once a year, and now AMD also plans to do so. How and why do you do this? A: This is what we see in the market. AI is our company's top priority. We fully utilize the development capabilities of the entire company and increase investment. There are new changes every year, as the market needs updated products and more features. The product portfolio can solve various workloads. Not all customers will use all products, but there will be a new trend every year, and it will be the most competitive. This involves investment, ensuring that hardware/software systems are part of it, and we are committed to making it (AI) our biggest strategic opportunity. Q: The number of TOPs in PC World - Strix Point (Ryzen AI 300) has increased significantly. TOPs cost money. How do you compare TOPs to CPU/GPU? A: Nothing is free! Especially in designs where power and cost are limited. What we see is that AI will be ubiquitous. Currently, CoPilot+ PC and Strix have more than 50 TOPs and will start at the top of the stack. But it (AI) will run through our entire product stack. At the high-end, we will expand TOPs because we believe that the more local TOPs, the stronger the AIPC function, and putting it on the chip will increase its value and help unload part of the computing from the cloud. Q: Last week, you said that AMD will produce 3nm chips using GAA. Samsung foundry is the only one that produces 3nm GAA. Will AMD choose Samsung foundry for this? A: Refer to last week's keynote address at imec. What we talked about is that AMD will always use the most advanced technology. We will use 3nm. We will use 2nm. We did not mention the supplier of 3nm or GAA. Our cooperation with TSMC is currently very strong-we talked about the 3nm products we are currently developing. Q: Regarding sustainability issues. AI means more power consumption. As a chip supplier, is it possible to optimize the power consumption of devices that use AI? A: For everything we do, especially for AI, energy efficiency is as important as performance. We are studying how to improve energy efficiency in every generation of products in the future-we have said that we will improve energy efficiency by 30 times between 2020 and 2025, and we are expected to exceed this goal. Our current goal is to increase energy efficiency by 100 times in the next 4-5 years. So yes, we can focus on energy efficiency, and we must focus on energy efficiency because it will become a limiting factor for future computing. Q: We had CPUs before, then GPUs, now we have NPUs. First, how do you see the scalability of NPUs? Second, what is the next big chip? Neuromorphic chip? A: You need the right engine for each workload. CPUs are very suitable for traditional workloads. GPUs are very suitable for gaming and graphics tasks. NPUs help achieve AI-specific acceleration. As we move forward and research specific new acceleration technologies, we will see some of these technologies evolve-but ultimately it is driven by applications. Q: You initially broke Intel's status quo by increasing the number of cores. But the number of cores of your generations of products (in the consumer aspect) has reached its peak. Is this enough for consumers and the gaming market? Or should we expect an increase in the number of cores in the future? A: I think our strategy is to continuously improve performance. Especially for games, game software developers do not always use all cores. We have no reason not to adopt more than 16 cores. The key is that our development speed allows software developers to and can actually utilize these cores. Q: Regarding desktops, do you think more efficient NPU accelerators are needed? A: We see that NPUs have an impact on desktops. We have been evaluating product segments that can use this function. You will see desktop products with NPUs in the future to expand our product portfolio.

Arm's CEO Rene Haas is a fascinating figure in the Technology Industry. He has worked for the two most important chip companies in the world: the first one is $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$, and now it is $Arm Holdings (ARM.US)$ . This means he has witnessed the industry's transformation from desktops to mobile, as well as how AI changes everything again.

Arm is at the core of these shifts; the company designs some of the world's most important computer chips but does not manufacture them. Arm's architecture supports Apple's custom-designed chips for iPhones and Macs, serves as the backbone for electric vehicles, and powers the AWS servers that handle a massive amount of Internet Plus-Related data.

A few years ago, Rene described Arm as the "Swiss Franc of the electronics industry" in an interview with the media, thanks to its widely adopted designs. However, in the era of AI, his business has become increasingly complex, as you will hear discussed. There are rumors that Arm plans not only to design but also to manufacture its own AI chips, which would put it in competition with some key customers. I pressed Rene about these rumors, and it can certainly be said that he is planning something.

I (referring to the author Alex Heath) asked Rene about his relationship with and how it feels to work with the quirky CEO Masayoshi Son. $SoftBank Group (ADR) (SFTBY.US)$ I specifically asked Rene questions regarding . $Intel (INTC.US)$ Reports indicate that Rene has recently considered acquiring a stake in Intel, and I wanted to know what he thinks this troubled company should do.

Of course, I also asked questions about the incoming Trump administration, the China-US debate, tariff threats, and so on. Rene is now the CEO of a public company, so he must be more cautious in answering such questions. But I think you'll still find many of his answers quite insightful. I know I did.

Alright, Arm CEO Rene Haas. Let's get started.

Question: What situation do you think Intel will face?

Rene Haas: Oh my God.

I think, as someone who has spent an entire career in this industry, it’s a bit sad to see what’s happening from a top-level perspective and from the idolized view of Intel. Intel is an innovation giant, whether in computer architecture, manufacturing technology, personal computer platforms, or servers. So it is indeed a bit sad to see the troubles it has been experiencing. But at the same time, innovation must occur in our industry. Many great technology companies have not undergone self-reinvention and thus have fallen into decline.

I think Intel’s biggest dilemma is how to shed the image of a vertically integrated company or a fabless company, simply put. Frankly, I believe this has been the crossroads Intel has faced for the past decade. [Former Intel CEO] Pat Gelsinger’s strategy was very clear: vertical integration was the way to win.

I think when he implemented this strategy in 2021, it was not a three-year strategy. It was a 5-10 year strategy. So now that he has left, and a new CEO is about to take office, this is a decision that must be made. My personal view is that vertical integration can be a very powerful thing, and if they can achieve it, they will be in an amazing position. But the associated costs are too high, and it may be an insurmountable mountain.

Question: We will discuss the vertical integration related to Arm later, but I want to quote something you told Ben Thompson earlier this year. You said, "I believe Intel collaborating with Arm will bring a lot of potential benefits." Recently, there have been reports that you are actually both in talks with Intel, possibly to acquire its product division. Given what has happened in the past few weeks, do you now want to collaborate more closely with Intel?

Rene Haas: Well, there are a few things I want to say about Intel. I will not comment on rumors about us acquiring it. Similarly, if you are a vertically integrated company and your strategic advantage lies in owning products and fabs, then you might have a huge cost advantage over your competitors. When Pat was serving as CEO, I did tell him more than once, "You should obtain a license from Arm. If you have your own fabs, the fab is for output, and we can provide output." I was not successful in convincing him to do this, but I do think it wouldn’t be a bad move for Intel.

On the other hand, regarding Arm's collaboration with Intel, we are working with$Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$The collaboration with Samsung is very close. For Intel, IFS is a major effort in terms of external customers, so we work closely with them to ensure they can access the latest technology. We can also use their design toolkit. We hope that external partners who want to create Intel can utilize the latest and best Arm technology. Therefore, in this case, we work closely with them.

Question: Speaking of policies, I want to mention a few points, starting with earlier news. What is your reaction to David Sacks becoming Trump's AI "Czar"? I don't know if you know him, but what is your response?

Rene Haas: I do know a little about him. Hats off to him. I think this is a very good thing. It is very interesting to look back to December eight years ago when Trump started filling his cabinet positions and appointments in a rather chaotic manner. There weren't many representatives from the tech industry at that time. This time, whether it's Elon Musk, David Sacks, Vivek Ramaswamy—I know Larry Ellison is also actively involved in discussions with the government—honestly, I think it’s a good thing. Being able to sit at the negotiating table and access policies is really great.

Question: Given your number of clients, I think very few companies face as many geopolitical policy issues as you do. What advice do you have for the new government? Or what suggestions would you make to the new government regarding your business?

Rene Haas: I want to say that this is not just about our business. Let’s talk about China first. The economies of the two countries are inextricably linked, so it’s difficult to design a separation of supply chains and technology. So I want to say that when this government or any government starts to take action and examines policies such as export controls, they should realize that forcibly disrupting it is not as easy as it looks on paper. There are many levers to consider.

We are an attribute in the supply chain. If you think about what it takes to manufacture semiconductor chips, there are EDA tools, Arm's IP, manufacturing, companies like NVIDIA and MediaTek that make chips, but also the raw materials needed to manufacture wafers, ingots, and substrates. They come from all directions. This is such a complex issue, they are inseparable, and I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all policy. I think the government should be willing to understand that any proposed solution requires a lot of balance.

Question: What is your current strategy in China? I have read that you might be working to provide your intellectual property licenses directly in China. You also have a subsidiary in China. Has your strategy in China changed this year?

Rene Haas: No. The only thing that might have changed for us—I would say for many people around the world, it might be the same—is that China used to be a very rich Venture market, where venture capital flowed freely. There was a lot of innovation and similar activities at that time. Now, that trend has definitely slowed down. Whether this is the way for these companies to exit from the stock market or to gain key technologies is still unclear. We do see this trend slowing down.

On the other hand, we are witnessing incredible growth in areas such as Autos. If you look at $BYD COMPANY (01211.HK)$ even $XIAOMI-W (01810.HK)$ companies that are producing electric vehicles, you will find the technological capabilities of these Autos to be incredible. For us, to be a bit selfish, they all are running on Arm. China is very pragmatic in constructing systems and products, heavily relying on the open-source global Software ecosystem, as well as all the software libraries optimized for Arm. Whether it's ADAS, power systems, or [in-vehicle infotainment], they are all based on Arm. Therefore, our Autos business in China is very strong.

Question: Are you particularly concerned about Topics related to Arm due to President Trump's remarks about China and tariffs?

Rene Haas: Personally, I believe that tariff threats are tools for negotiation. I think President Trump has proven to be a businessman, and tariffs are levers to initiate negotiations. We will see, but I'm not too worried about it.

Question: How do you view the Biden administration's efforts to bring more domestic production to the USA through the CHIPS Act? Do you believe we need an AI Manhattan Project, as OpenAI has been advocating?

Rene Haas: I believe we do not need the government, OpenAI, or Manhattan-style projects. I think the work done by OpenAI, Anthropic, and even the open-source work pushed by Meta and Llama has shown us excellent innovation. Can we say that the USA is leading in foundational and frontier models? Of course. And all of this has been achieved without government intervention. So, personally, I believe there is no need for AI to operate this way.

Regarding the fab question, I return to your initial inquiry. Intel spends $30-40 billion each year on these cutting-edge nodes. This is unacceptable for any company, which is why I believe the CHIPS Act is a good thing and necessary. Manufacturing Semiconductors is fundamental to our economic engine. We learned during COVID that it takes 52 weeks to replace a keyring due to everything happening in the supply chain. I believe having supply chain resilience is very important. This is crucial on a global level and absolutely vital at a national level. I have supported the CHIPS Act in the past and I continue to do so now.

Question: So, even if we have the capital to possibly invest more in domestic production, do we have the talent? This is something I have thought about, and I have heard you discuss this issue. You have spent a lot of time trying to find talent, but talent is scarce. Even if we spend all this money, do we have the talent this country truly needs to win and make progress?

Rene Haas: One of the things that is happening is that the visibility of the talent issue has genuinely increased. I think investing more in semiconductor university programs and semiconductor research is helpful. For years, semiconductor degrees, especially in manufacturing, have not been viewed as the most attractive. Many people are focused on Software as a Service and other fields. I think we need to bring this back at the university level. Now, one might say that if AI Siasun Robot&Automation agents could come in to do meaningful work, that might help, but manufacturing chips and semiconductor processes is both an art and a science, especially when it comes to increasing manufacturing yields. I am not sure if we have enough talent, but I know there is a lot of effort being put in right now to strengthen this.

Question: Let's talk about Arm's business. You have many clients—large tech companies—so you have encountered AI in many areas. As far as I know, you haven't really elaborated on the contribution of AI to the business, but can you tell us where the growth points are for AI and Arm?

Rene Haas: One of the things we discussed earlier is that we are now a publicly traded company. We were not a publicly traded company in 2022. One lesson I've learned as a publicly traded company is to disclose as little information as possible, so that no one asks you about the direction of developments.

Question: I am asking right now.

Rene Haas: [laughs] Yes, I know you would. So I would say we won’t be revealing that information. We are observing— and I believe this will only accelerate— whether you talk about AI Datacenters, AirPods, or wearable devices in your ear, there are now AI workloads running everywhere, which is quite apparent. It does not necessarily require ChatGPT-5 running training for six months to determine the next level of complexity, but it may just be running a small level of inference to help AI models run anywhere. As I mentioned, we see AI workloads running everywhere. So, what does this mean for Arm?

Our core business is CPU, but we also produce GPU, NPU, and neural processing engines. What we see is the need to increase computing power to accelerate these AI workloads. We believe this is a bet. Either place a neural engine that can run acceleration in the GPU, or make the CPU more capable of running scalable AI. We see this everywhere. I wouldn't even say this will accelerate; it will be the default.

What you will face is that AI workloads run on everything you must do, from the smallest edge devices to the most complex Datacenters. Therefore, if you look at phones or personal computers, they must run graphics, games, operating systems, and applications—by the way, it now needs to run some level of Copilot or agent. This means there is a need for increasingly more computing power within systems that already have certain limitations in cost, size, and area. This is good for us because it presents a series of challenges that need to be resolved, but what we see is also quite clear. Therefore, I'd say AI is everywhere.

Question: At the unveiling of Apple's latest iPhone, there has been much discussion about the AI supercycle for Apple. Some believe that Apple's AI will revitalize iPhone sales while the overall smartphone market has entered a stagnation phase. When do you think AI (on-device AI) can truly begin to reignite growth in the smartphone market? Because right now, it feels like it hasn't happened yet.

Rene Haas: I think there are two reasons. One is that the model and its functionality are evolving very quickly, which is driving how you manage local running, cloud running, and the balance between latency and security. It is developing at an astonishing pace. I just had a discussion with someone from OpenAI last week. They are doing the 12 days of Christmas—

Question: A 12-day delivery?

Rene Haas: A 12-day delivery cycle, and they are doing something every day. Developing a chip takes two or three years. Think about the chip in the new iPhone, when it's being conceived, designed, and the functions we think need to go into the phone. ChatGPT didn't even exist at that time. So, this will be a gradual process, then it will happen suddenly. You will see a turning point when the hardware is now sufficiently complex, and then applications flood in.

Question: What is this transformation? Is it new products? Or hardware breakthroughs? Or a combination of both? Or is it some kind of wearable device?

Rene Haas: Well, as I said, whether it's wearables, personal computers, smartphones, or cars, the chips being designed are being packed with computing power as much as possible to fully utilize the existing computing capabilities on the chip. So, it's a bit like the chicken or the egg dilemma. You equip the hardware with as much capability as possible, hoping the software can adapt to it, and the software is innovating at a very, very rapid speed. This intersection will suddenly appear, 'Oh my gosh, I've scaled down a large language model to a certain size. The chip in this mini wearable now has enough memory to leverage this model. As a result, the magic happens.' This will occur. It will be gradual, then suddenly happen.

Question: Are you bullish on all these AI wearable devices that people are developing? I know that Arm is involved in the development of Meta Ray-Bans, and I am actually a loyal fan of it. I find the design quite interesting. AR glasses, headphones — do you think this is a large market?

Rene Haas: Yes, I do. It's interesting because in many markets we are involved in, whether it's mainframes, personal computers, mobile devices, wearables, or watches, some new form factors will drive some level of innovation. It's hard to say what the next form factor will look like. I think it will be a hybrid situation, whether it's glasses or home devices, they are more like PUSH devices rather than PULL devices. You don't have to ask Alexa or Google Assistant what to do, rather you let this information push to you. You might not want this information pushed to you, but it could be presented in a way that helps you look around. I believe the future form factors will be somewhat similar to what we see today, but you may see some of these devices becoming smarter at the PUSH level.

Question: There have been reports that SoftBank's boss, Masayoshi Son, has been collaborating with Jony Ive and OpenAI to develop hardware, or a joint development among the three. I heard there might be home-focused developments. What products are you developing that you can talk about?

Rene Haas: I've read the same rumors.

Question:$Amazon (AMZN.US)$It has just been announced that it is collaborating with Anthropic to build the largest AI datacenter, and Arm is also truly venturing into the datacenter business. What are your thoughts on hyperscale enterprises and their investments in AI?

Rene Haas: Investment amounts are growing rapidly. You just need to look at the numbers of some people in this industry. This is a very interesting time because we still see endless investment in training. Training requires a lot of computation and energy, which drives significant growth. But the level of computation required for inference will actually be much larger. I believe the proportion of inference will exceed half, and perhaps over time, 80% will be inference. However, the number of inference cases that need to be run far exceeds what we have today.

This is why you will see companies like CoreWeave, $Oracle (ORCL.US)$ and companies that traditionally were not in this field are now running AI cloud. So, why is that? Because the capacity of traditional large hyperscale companies (Amazon, Metas, Google, $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$) is not enough. I think we will continue to see changes in the landscape — perhaps not much change, but certainly opportunities for other participants to realize and capture this growth.

This is very, very good for Arm, because we see a significant increase in our market share in the datacenter. AWS built the Graviton General Equipment based on Arm, which participated in re:Invent this week. They stated that 50% of all new deployments are Graviton. Therefore, 50% of any new product on AWS is Arm, and this number will not decrease. It will only go up.

One thing we are seeing is devices like Nvidia's Grace Blackwell CPU. This is Arm using Nvidia GPUs. This is a big advantage for us because now AI cloud is running host nodes based on Arm. If a datacenter now has an AI cluster where general computing is Arm, they naturally want to run as much non-AI general computing as possible on Arm. So what we are seeing is just the acceleration of datacenters, whether it is AI, inference, or general computing.

Question: Are there concerns that the spending levels on hyperscale and the models themselves might create a bubble? This is an incredible amount of money, and the ROI has not yet been achieved. One might say that it is true in certain places, but do you think there is a fear of a bubble?

Rene Haas: On one hand, it's crazy to say that growth will continue unabated, right? We have already seen that this is not the case. I think, during this specific growth phase, it is very interesting to see to what extent AI can enhance and/or replace certain levels of jobs, thereby bringing real benefits. Nowadays, some AI models and chatbots are decent, but not great. They supplement jobs but do not necessarily replace them.

But if you start to explore agents capable of performing actual work and replacing what people need to do in terms of thinking and reasoning, it becomes quite interesting. Then you would ask, "How will that be achieved?" Well, we haven't achieved that yet, so we need to train more models. The models need to become more complex, and so on. So I think training will continue for a while, but as AI agents approach human-like reasoning capabilities, I think they will mature to some extent. I don't think training can be unrestricted because at some point, you will get specialized training models instead of general models, which require fewer resources.

Question: I just attended a conference where Sam Altman spoke, and he deliberately lowered the standards for AGI, talking about announcing this news next year. I cynically think that OpenAI is trying to rearrange the profit-sharing agreement with Microsoft. But setting that aside, what are your thoughts on AGI? When can we have it, and what does it mean? Will it be a sudden big bang moment, or more of a whimper as Altman has said?

Rene Haas: I know he has his own definition of AGI, and he has his reasons. I don't really agree with the debate on "What is AGI and ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence)?" I think more about when these AI agents will start to think, reason, and invent. For me, that's a critical moment, right? For instance, ChatGPT can do well on the bar exam, but to some extent, you have loaded enough logic and information into the model, and the answers are somewhere in there. To what extent are AI models like a stochastic parrot, just repeating everything they find online? Ultimately, your performance depends only on the model you have trained, and the quality of the model depends on the data.

But when the model reaches the point of being able to think, reason, and invent, creating new concepts, products, and ideas? For me, that is AGI. I don't know if we need another year, but I would say we are closer to it. If you had asked me this question a year ago, I would have said it was far off. You ask me this question now, and I would say we are closer to it.

Question: What is closer? Two years? Three years?

Rene Haas: Maybe. I could be wrong on this. Every time I interact with partners who are working on models, whether at Google or OpenAI, they show us demonstrations, and the progress they have made is astounding. So yes, I think we are not far from obtaining a model capable of thinking, reasoning, and inventing.

Question: Last time you were on Decoder, you mentioned that Arm is regarded as the "Swiss" of the electronics industry, but this year there has been much reporting that you are considering genuinely moving into the high-end market and designing your own chips. I've heard you not answer this question multiple times, and I anticipated a similar negative response, but I will still try to ask. Why is Arm doing this? Why is Arm moving up the value chain?

Rene Haas: This sounds like a question like, 'What if I made the answer,' right? Why would Arm consider doing something different from what is currently happening? I will return to the topic we first discussed about AI workloads. What we constantly see is that, from a software perspective, AI workloads are intertwined with everything that is happening. Our core is computer architecture. That's what we do. We have great products. Our CPUs are excellent, our GPUs are great, but without software, our products are worthless. Software is the key to making our engines run.

If you are defining computer architecture and building the future of computing, one of the things you need to pay special attention to is the relationship between Hardware and Software. You need to understand where trade-offs are made, where optimizations occur, and what benefits this type of integrated chip will ultimately bring to the Consumer. If you are building something, it is easier to do this than licensing Intellectual Property (IP). This is seen from this perspective: if you are building something, then you are closer to this linkage and have a better perspective on design trade-offs. So, if we are going to do something, this will be one of the reasons we might undertake this task.

Question: Are there concerns about competing with customers?

Rene Haas: I mean, my customer is Apple. I’m not going to manufacture phones. My customer is$Tesla (TSLA.US)$I’m not going to manufacture Autos. My customer is Amazon. I’m not going to build Datacenters.

Question: What about Nvidia? You used to work for Jensen.

Rene Haas: Well, he is doing boxes, right? He makes DGX boxes and various other things.

Question: Speaking of Jensen - we discussed this issue before joining - when you were at NVIDIA, CUDA was just starting to mature. You just talked about software links. How do you view the relationship between Software and Arm? When considering pushing the stack upward like this, does it create lock-in? What does having something like CUDA mean?

Rene Haas: We can see lock-in as an offensive strategy, where you take the approach of 'I'm going to do these things so I can lock people in,' and/or you provide an environment where you can easily use your Hardware, and by default, you will 'lock in.' Let's go back to the comments on AI workloads. So today, if you're doing general computing, you would write your algorithms in C, JAX, or something similar.

Now, suppose you want to write something in TensorFlow or Python. In an ideal world, what do Software developers want? They want to be able to write their applications at a very high level, whether for general workloads or AI workloads, and just have it run on the underlying Hardware without really having to understand the properties of that Hardware. Software developers are great. They are inherently lazy, and they want their applications to run and work properly.

Therefore, as a computer architecture platform, we have a responsibility to make this all simple. For us, considering the provision of a homogeneous heterogeneous platform across Software is a major initiative. We are doing this today. We have a technology called Kleidi and have Kleidi libraries for AI and CPUs. We apply all the advantages of acceleration in CPU products using these libraries, and we make them available publicly. No charge. Developers, it just works. Looking ahead, since the vast majority of platforms today are based on Arm and will largely run AI workloads, we just want to make it really easy for people to do this.

Question: Before we start discussing the interesting Decoder issues, I want to ask you one thing that you cannot talk about. I know you are about to enter this trial.$Qualcomm (QCOM.US)$You really cannot discuss it. Meanwhile, I believe you sense the concerns of investors and partners regarding what is going to happen. Address those concerns. You don't have to talk about the trial itself but address the worries of investors and partners about this struggle.

Rene Haas: So the latest update is that the company plans to have the trial on December 16, which is not far away. I can understand, as we have spoken with investors and partners, their biggest pet peeve is uncertainty. But on the other hand, I want to say that our principles for filing the lawsuit have not changed; I can only say so much.

Question: Alright, there is more content coming up. The issue with the Decoder. The last time you participated in a podcast, Arm had not yet gone public. I am curious, after being publicly listed for a few years now, what has surprised you about being a public company?

Rene Haas: I think, on a personal level, what surprised me is that it has consumed a full day of my time because I ultimately had to consider things we hadn’t thought about before. But at the highest level, it’s really not a huge change. Arm was previously a public company. When SoftBank acquired us, we integrated through SoftBank. Therefore, we have a good muscle memory for being able to report quarterly earnings and check in over time. In terms of company operations, we have an excellent team. I have a great finance team that is very good at doing this. Personally, I am just grateful that now I have a lot of time each week to engage in activities that I hadn’t really participated in before.

Question: Has there been any change in Arm's organizational structure since going public?

Rene Haas: No. I firmly believe in not making too many organizational changes. For me, organizational design follows your strategy, and strategy follows your vision. If you reflect on the way I have publicly discussed Arm over the past few years, you will see that there has been almost no change. Therefore, we haven't made many organizational changes. I believe that organizational change is highly disruptive. We are a company with 8,000 employees, so we are not very large, but if you make large-scale organizational changes, it’s better to do so after making significant strategic changes. Otherwise, you'll have off-site meetings, team meetings, and Zoom calls to discuss my new leadership. If it's not supporting strategic changes, then it's wasting time. So I really make an effort not to do too much of that.

Question: We previously talked about possibly considering a more vertical approach or its value, which seems like a significant change that could affect the structure.

Rene Haas: Yes, if we do that. That’s right.

Question: This year, have you had to make particularly tough trade-offs when making decisions? Can you talk about it? How do you weigh those trade-offs?

Rene Haas: I don’t know if there are any specific trade-offs. As a CEO—goodness, it will be three years in February—you are always mentally weighing what needs to happen today against what needs to happen five years from now. I tend to think more about what will happen five years from now rather than what will happen one quarter from now. I don’t know if I have made any significant trade-offs, but I have been working hard to balance what needs to be done daily with what needs to be done in the next five years.

I have an excellent team. The engineering team is great. The finance team is great. The sales and marketing team is also great. In daily work, there is not much I can do, but the work I can influence is the work for the next five years. I try to spend my time on work that only I can do. If there are some tasks that the team can handle and I won't contribute much, I try to stay away from them. But the biggest trade-off I face is between daily work and future work.

Question: How will Arm be different in five years?

Rene Haas: We don’t know how we will look as a company, but hopefully we can continue to be a very influential company in the industry. I have high expectations for what we can achieve.

Question: I am curious about what it feels like to work with Masayoshi Son. He is your largest Shareholder and the Chairman of the Board of Directors. I believe you have talked about this before. Is he as entertaining in the boardroom as he is in public?

Rene Haas: Yes, he is a fascinating person. One thing I admire about Masayoshi Son is that he is the CEO and founder of a company that has been around for 40 years, but I think he doesn't receive enough credit for that. He has reinvented himself multiple times. I mean, SoftBank was initially a software distributor, and he transformed it from a SoftBank Mobile operator into an investor. Honestly, working with him is enjoyable. I have learned a lot from him. Obviously, he is very ambitious and loves to take risks, but at the same time, he has a good grasp of what matters. I think everything you see about him is accurate. He is a very interesting person.

Question: How involved is he in shaping Arm's long-term future with you?

Rene Haas: Well, he is the Chairman of the company and also the Chairman of the Board of Directors. From this perspective, the Board's job is to evaluate the company's long-term strategy, and I tend to think about things from a long-term perspective, so I often discuss these matters with him.

Question: You have worked with two very influential tech leaders: Masa from NVIDIA and Jensen. What makes them unique?

Rene Haas: This is a great question. I believe that those who founded companies and still drive company development with the same passion and innovation after 20 to 30 years — Jensen, Son Masayoshi, Ellison, Jeff Bezos, I’m sure I haven’t named them all — possess many of the same qualities. They are extremely smart, talented, have a long-term vision, work very hard, but also have great courage. These factors are essential for those who remain at the top for a long time.

I am a basketball fan, and I always compare Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant when people talk about what makes them great. Clearly, they are exceptionally talented and athletic, but their character and drive set them apart. I believe Jensen, Son Masayoshi, Ellison, and the other names I mentioned belong to the same category. Obviously, Elon Musk is the same.

We will stop here. Rene, thank you very much for joining us.

Editor/Rocky