Who owns AMD?

If you’re browsing gaming graphics cards, you don’t have much choice since Nvidia and AMD pretty much hold a duopoly. Of course, opting for AMD over Nvidia has several drawbacks, mainly in terms of technologies like ray tracing and driver support, but the price is something that’s sure to entice you if you’re strapped for cash. So, what exactly do you get? Who owns AMD?

Just like Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (more commonly known as AMD) is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ, so you can expect full ownership to be backed by the colorful. The largest individual shareholder is Dr. Lisa T. Su, CEO of the company, who owns more than 3.8 million shares. Right behind are Mark Papermaster, the CTO, and Jack M. Huynh, the senior vice president. Yet the majority of shares, over 72% to be exact, are owned by various institutional investors. Vanguard Group Inc. owns nearly 10% of the stock (its portfolio also includes a 6% share of Nvidia), followed closely by the famous BlackRock and State Street Investment Management.

AMD is currently headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and has been in the computing industry since 1969. AMD didn’t really hit its stride until the late ’90s with the revolutionary Athlon processor and didn’t become what it is today until 2006, when it acquired ATI Technologies. AMD then released the Radeon GPU as a direct response to Nvidia’s popular GeForce product line, sparking the arms race between these two companies that still rages today.

Do individual shareholders have a hand in other companies? For starters, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su has had quite a career. Her time at IBM spanned 12 years, highlights of which included working on copper interconnects and serving as technical assistant to the CEO. Su then joined AMD and within two years became CEO. Su serves on the board of directors of the US Semiconductor Industry Association, alongside, among others, Nvidia’s Tim Teter and Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan.

The CTO, Mark Papermaster, had a similar background and worked for Cisco, Apple and IBM over the years. Currently, Papermaster does not hold any shares in other companies. However, he is vice chair of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Industrial Advisory Committee.

It’s a similar thing with senior vice president Jack M. Huynh. Although he is one of AMD’s majority individual shareholders, he does not hold any other stocks in his portfolio. It could be argued that Huynh is the most committed to AMD, having worked for the company since 1998, filling a series of important roles during his tenure. Prior to serving as corporate vice president, he served as general manager of AMD’s mobile division.

With BlackRock and Vanguard having significant stakes in both companies, the similarities don’t end there. When you look at where Nvidia GPUs are manufactured, the key location is Taiwan. This also applies to its main competitor, since AMD manufactures its processors in the same place. In fact, TSMC, the leader in semiconductor manufacturing, is behind both chips, and the only difference is of course in the design.

So the reason AMD is cheaper has nothing to do with where the products are made. The company has instead positioned itself as a more affordable alternative to Nvidia. In terms of performance, they are pretty close, at least in mid-range and lower-tier graphics cards. Things fall apart somewhat as you move up the ladder; think beefy GPUs and processors. This is where Nvidia still reigns supreme and simply offers more performance, despite its higher price. After all, you have to pay full price for all those extra images. But that doesn’t make AMD any less good. The best graphics card is the one you can afford and use. Can you stomach $4,000 for the top-of-the-line Nvidia?