October 11, 2024 • 26 mins
Don McGuire is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. In this role, McGuire leads global marketing across all Qualcomm’s businesses, as the company continues to diversify beyond mobile into new growth areas. McGuire oversees marketing communications including advertising, creative, media and brand management, and digital and social media marketing; corporate communications; product and technology marketing; partner and channel marketing; sales and ecosystem enablement; marketing strategy, planning and operations; and research, measurement and analytics.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartMedia presents national CEOs you should know. Let's meet Don McGuire,
Chief Marketing Officer of Qualcom.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I am a product of southern California, pretty much lived
most of my life in San Diego, which I am
currently living in as well, and so I'm sort of
a native. I grew up in Salona Beach, California, which
was and still is a little beach community just about
(00:30):
twenty minutes north of downtown San Diego on the Pacific,
and graduated from high school there. I am a publicly
educated kid my entire life, public schools all the way through,
including university I went to. I'm a state school kid.
So I went to school California State University, Chico f
(00:50):
under grad and then graduated, and after bumming around Europe
for several months figuring out what I wanted to do
with my life, I took my first job and it
happened to be in the wireless communications industry, and you know,
from there, it's it's been a fun ride.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, it's been a great ride for you, and I
know you have so much more to do, and we
are here to talk a lot about what you're doing
at Qualcom now and all the different products that you
offer and the cool things, the innovations, technologies and what's
coming into the future that I'm really curious about. But
I did want to ask you about Qualcom, specifically about
you going there. You know, over six years with a company,
the last year and a half you've been the CMO.
(01:33):
I know what Qualcom saw on you by that unbelievable resume,
don But what did you see in Qualcomb that said
I've got to join that company.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Really was a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
You know, There's there's few companies in the world that
have invested in inventing technology that truly is societally changed
and so pervasive that it touches people's lives in so
(02:05):
many different ways over the course of a single day.
And so that is a pretty amazing sort of you know,
company mission or purpose and UH. And so that the
the what I what ideally drew me to join the
company was this opportunity for Qualcomm story to be better
(02:28):
told number one. Uh, the growth trajectory and the diversification
that the company had just begun to experience, you know,
beyond its organic growth.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It was also something that was very attractive to me
and the chance for me to kind of further my
career in owning the marketing you know, platform for and
across multiple business lines, you know, still in the technology space.
I've pretty much been a tech marketer my entire career,
but this opportunity to lean in to so many different
(03:04):
product categories that are impacting so many different business segments
and industries was a unique opportunity that I just couldn't
pass up.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Wonderful. Well, thank you for that. And you mentioned that
keyword mission and before we talk about any specificity with products,
and there are a lot of incredible ones that you
have currently and I know the future looks bright as
well for Qualcom, But what is the mission state for Qualcom?
What is the mission statement?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So the Qualcom as an organization, as a company, basically,
we're all about enabling a world where everyone and everything
can be intelligently connected.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
That is sort of the.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Elevator, you know, tweetable tweet mission statement for the organization.
And it comes down to really the engineering of human progress.
Right We're moving to a world where devices are becoming smarter,
and it's really an expansion outside of the number one
its coveted device in people's lives, which has been and
(04:03):
continues to be their smartphone into all these different types
of devices that people experience in their lives personally as
well as uh, you know, in business. And that extends,
you know, outside the phone, you know now to the PC,
where the PC has become a very very important communication device,
especially during the pandemic. It extends into smart things like
(04:25):
watches and earbuds and thermostats and vacuum cleaners and refrigerators
and watching machines, et cetera. That is kind of creating
this Internet of things for the home, but it also
extends to the business and the transportation and you know
are basically our cars are becoming just massive smart phones
on wheels, and technology is playing more and more of
(04:47):
a role in in how we conduct our lives, both
at work and at play and so and so that's
kind of this idea that everything is becoming smarter, everything's
becoming more connected both to each other as well as
to the cloud. And that immense amount of data that's
(05:09):
going to be flowing or is already flowing between devices
from device to the cloud, back to device and to
the environment around it is really our mission, our growth opportunity,
and our purpose and our mission.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I'm on your beautifully easy to navigate website right now,
and it really is a fun website to go check out,
and we'll give that at the end of our conversation.
But I'm looking by technology and application for your products,
and a lot of them I recognize a few I
don't because I'm a layman. But I would like you
to maybe talk about a couple of products, maybe technology,
your application that you're jazzed about not only because it's
(05:42):
really cool now, but you see an exciting future for
customers out there in your company.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Sure. And as chief marketing officer, I have sort of
two roles.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I play the role and my team plays the role
of business to business marketers, and that really has to
do with products and services and solutions that are all
calm branded that really go into enterprise or go into
you know, digital transform the digital transformation of industries. And
then I got the unique and pleasurable experience of of
(06:13):
of driving my team to also be more B two
C marketers in in the product lines that bear the
Snapdragon brand, and Snapdragon is a name that probably more
consumers would understand or would have heard of up to
this point, and in some markets around the world enjoys
you know, upwards of eighty five to eighty seven percent
(06:35):
brand awareness. And the Snapdragon suite of products are really
those are platforms that go into devices that people use
in their daily lives every day smartphones, PCs, earbuds, watches,
and cars and in the new emerging category of extended reality,
so mixed reality, augmented reality, and virtual reality. All those
(06:56):
devices that you may have touched or you may have purchase,
chances are they have snap Dragon platforms inside of them.
And so so that's the B two C side. The
B two B side is really about a suite of
solutions that help the digital transformation of enterprises and and
industries move forward. And a lot of those products range
(07:17):
from you know, sensors and cameras to to you know
drone platforms, uh to you know Wi Fi six six
e seven types of gateways, and to wireless infrastructure that's
really helping the the democratization of of of the networks.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
So a lot of very vast array of products. As
I said sort of the beginning of this.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Our technology is so pervasive and our rope map is
so extensible, there's a lot to do, and so so
we play in a lot of areas. And again, you know,
a business customer obviously will know the company and note
the types of solutions that we have. A consumer may
have heard of snap Dragon or understand that snapag and
is powering that amazing Stamsung Galaxy you know experience, or
(08:05):
those amazing bos headphones, or that you know, luxurious Louis
Vuitton watch smart watch. They may understand that, they may not.
You know, it's my team's mission to help them understand
that and and and to explain to them why that's important.
And then on the B two B side, conversely, it's
about you know, selling in and marketing o our vast
amount of solutions that are really helped that's really helping
(08:25):
with this this this macro trend of digital transformation. So
that's kind of how I look at the company, and
then how we sort of talk about our products within
those ecosystems.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
And then we also have technology.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Development that we do, uh and then and we license
that technology out to ecosystems. We develop these open platforms.
A lot of intellectual property is developed by our brilliant
inventors that you know sit in the halls and in
the offices and in the cubes and in the dining
(08:58):
halls of of our offices, and so that's also a
business for us. But all of that development of IP
goes into the product development process and manifests itself in
the products that we sell as well.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Well, thank you for sharing all that, And you know
you mentioned those scientists. I didn't want to share a
quick story with you and then ask you something, So
I had the fortuitanists to work in Raleigh, North Carolina
with a media company that also had a television station,
and they were the first local news broadcast to go
full time HD. And it was about twenty three, twenty
four years ago. Now it's hard to believe it's been
almost a couple of decades and then another five years
(09:34):
on top of that, but it was an exciting time
and it was life changing. It just was for all
of us. Everybody's got a television set. With that said,
is there anything in the Qualcom product family now that
over the next say, two five ten years is going
to be life changing for us?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well? Absolutely, I mean I think that, I think that
the beauty of our technology roadmap and the immense amount
of R and D that we do to drive these
generational changes in wireless connectivity, in high performance, low power compute,
as well as on device intelligence or AI is going
(10:12):
to manifest itself in amazing new products. I think what
we're going to see in the in the virtual and
augmented reality space, we're going to see what exists today.
It's smaller and lighter and more comfortable so that it
can be used in a more ubiquitous fashion. So and
these you know, these smart glasses or whatever you want
(10:33):
to call them, you could very well be.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
The next compute platform for people.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And I don't think it's it's it's far fetched to
say that over the next several years, you know, most
people will be walking around with some sort of smart
glass that they're using to augment their in real life experiences,
whether it's just through gathering of information about the world
around them the environment, whether it's communicating with people, whether
it's getting information about people that are going to communicate
(11:00):
with or meet, or whether it's finding their way from
point A to point B. All of these use cases,
which are very rational and practical, will manifest themselves through
some of these cool new products that will be coming
out over the next you know, two to five years.
On top of that I mentioned earlier cars. You know,
we see the massive electrification and the mass of the
(11:21):
massive transformation of the auto industry. Our our Snapdragon automotive
platforms are driving that transformation from you know, smart digital
cockpits and heads up displays to you know, wireless charging
inside the vehicle for your devices, right to wireless connectivity
that's connected to the cloud so that you can download
(11:42):
over the air updates, software updates to your car, which
in the past you would have had to make an
appointment to go in to the dealership and you know,
leave your car for twenty four to forty eight plus
hours in order to conduct that update. To Driver's assistance
right and which which is you know, normally referred to
as a DAS right, which is just assisted driving technology
(12:04):
and making the road safer, understanding when you might be
drowsy and suggesting that you pull over for a cup
of coffee or that you take a nap, giving you
more lane assistance, avoiding obstructions in the road, helping prevent accidents,
whether it's because of human error right, which is eighty
percent of all car accidents are basically human error driven.
(12:26):
Imagine eliminating that as a factor and how many lives
can be saved. So those are some of the things
just the tip of the iceberg that are coming down
the path, all powered by you know, the development of
the amazing technology that you know, the engineers, inventors and
folks at Qualcom have spent you know, blood, sweat and
(12:50):
tears developing over the past you know, ten to fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Well, don it sounds really exciting, and I can tell
you're jazzed up about it and passion about it and
not passionate about what I do. And I think that's
really the whole thing when to leadership and doing our
jobs out there, is having the passion first and then
the execution of leadership and everything else that I do.
Want to talk to you in just a second, but
your passion reminded me about how there's certain people in
my industry got me excited about the business. And you
(13:14):
don't have to name off a bunch of names, and
they don't have to be necessarily famous, but you know,
you've attained a pretty high level what you do now
a qualcomm in this industry. Is there anybody as you
were growing up, whether you were in school a lout
of school, as you were coming through Qualcomm that you
looked up to, and he said, I want to attain
that because that person's cool, they're innovative, they're doing things,
they're changing the world. I'm really excited about that. Do
(13:35):
you have a couple of people that had that impact
on your life.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Absolutely. I mean, I think it starts with my you know,
my father wasn't you know, a tech marketer. He was,
you know, he's the CEO of several companies that were
technology driven, but mostly on the wireless infrastructure or the
telephony infrastructure side of things.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
But he was, you know, he worked really really hard.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And and and ultimately achieved a high level of success.
And he was the he was the one who kind
of gave me the advice to get into, you know,
this this new category at the time, which was called
cellular technology. So I gave him a lot of credit
for starting me on my path. Other than that, I've
had several mentors. Look, I've had people I've worked for
(14:21):
that have been super amazing, people that I've been able
to emulate, that I've been able to learn from. And
then I've had people that worked for that have been
absolutely horrendous. But I've I've I've learned from both sides,
right You you learn what to do and and you
learn what not to do from those experiences. And and
(14:42):
there's a woman named Sue Swinson who was I worked
for several times in my career and she I considered
her a mentor of mine. And so there's there's lots
of those kind of examples along my journey of people
that have influenced me. And then you know, my family
for just being so supportive of of my journey. And
you know, I've got a schedule that puts me, you know,
(15:04):
on travel at fifty plus percent of the time pretty
much throughout my entire career. And so to have an
understanding family and being able to you know, be what
to focus on quality.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Over quantity, you know, as far as being engaged in
my children's lives things like that, I can't you know,
thank them enough.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well, thank you for sharing all of that. And that
leads us into leadership. And we always love to talk
to our cmos, our CEOs and just leaders in general
of their respective companies about what it takes to do
what you do. You know, A key buzzwords that we've
heard are you know, simple acknowledgment, hiring, the right people
to let them do what they do and don't over
(15:44):
manage them. Certain kind of cultures, having accessibility. So saying
all those things, maybe for all the people out there
that are budding cmos, CEOs or leaders for their small
or large business, what kind of advice do you have
them about what you've been through and what you've to today.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So I would start out with saying, you know, being
a leader, Uh, there's a difference between.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Being a manager and being a leader. And I think.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Leadership is it has some naturalness to it. You know,
there's the term natural born leader, right, and and so
I think that there are some natural characteristics that can
make help people start out as as relatively good and
strong leaders. But then I also think leadership is a
(16:32):
learned talent and a learned skill and and and it's
an ongoing process because you're always learning lessons in leadership
as you move through your life. And I think one
of the biggest lessons most recently was during this pandemic
that we've all experienced, and how leadership really required you
(16:52):
to dial in on empathy. Uh, you know, to have
the teams that you lead going through Yes, a similar experience,
meaning that we were all plagued by no pun intended
by this pandemic, but we were all experiencing it in
very different ways, right from detachment to mental health issues,
(17:16):
you know, to lack of engagement, to you know, living
situations and or working situations, family life being disrupted, all
those types of things. People were going through this in
very individual, in very personal ways, and you had to
recognize that, and as a leader, you had to be
able to help shepherd, you know, your teams through this experience,
(17:39):
understanding that it's affecting people in very different ways. So
you can't treat everybody the same way. You can't address
people's issues the same way. You have to really start
out with this empathetic sort of ear and then work
with them to unpack the issues and work through the
issues in a very personalized manner. So I think empathy
has never been more important as a leadership quality then
(18:03):
it has been over the last you know, two and
a half three years. And and so that's one one
thing I would say.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Another thing is, you know, command and control is dead.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Command and control does not work anymore, you know, especially
in the US right or most developed societies and cultures,
there are generational shifts that have happened from gen X
to gen Y, from gen Y to millennials, and from
millennials to gen Z, where the the access to information,
(18:36):
the independence of people starting so much earlier in their
lives that you can't lead by fear. You can't lead
and control and micromanage. It just doesn't work anymore. And
if you try to deploy or adopt a command and
control leadership style, it's going to backfire on you. It
(18:56):
has to be. Leadership is inclusive. Leadership is nurtrative. Leadership
is mentorship right in a lot of ways, And it's
it's moving the needle with a team of people and
bringing them along for the journey and and having it
be exciting and inspirational and collaborative and and sort of democratized.
(19:21):
And so I think that's one of the things that
again maybe ten years ago you had you saw glimmers
of that and certain leaders but I think it's it's
it's a staple to good leadership these days.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Is democratizing right the process.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And you know, we hear about that with Web three,
and we hear about democratization of the Internet and on
all sorts of other platforms. I think the democratized station
of leadership is another phenomenon that has existed, actually existed
for quite some time, but come into focus probably in
the last several years.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Well, Don, it's very insightful and thank you for sharing
all of that. I did want to ask you on
the sidebar about philanthropic and shared things. And we always
ask our CEOs and our cmos and our leaders. We
know how terribly busy you are. You've kind of explained
all the flights that you have to take in the
travel and away from your family. But when you and
your family or people at qual common that film, we
get a chance to do anything charitable or philanthropic.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So as all addressed like the company first and then
personal second. From a company perspective, we have a you know,
we have our qual Com Foundation, which does a ton
of monetary charitable giving around the world. We have our
qual Com for Good platform, which is how we utilize
our technology to lift up societies, lift up people's, lift
(20:39):
up economies.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Around the world, and through our wireless Reach program.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And then we also have our STEM program which is
called our think of It Labs, and our Think of
It Labs are really about promoting stem or steam or stream,
whatever acronym you want to use these days, and getting young,
specifically underserved people uh to get excited about about science, technology, engineering,
(21:05):
and math. And because the workforce of tomorrow is you know, diverse, right,
it's inclusive, and we need more people to be interested
in what, you know, what makes this amazing technology come
to life. And if we if we run out of
that labor force, right, progress is going to is going
(21:26):
to slow down. So that's from a company perspective, just
some of the things that we're engaged with on a
personal level. As part of my CMO platform, I've taken
on the digital divide and closing the digital divide as
a personal mission as the CMO and representative of Qualcomm.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I think there's more that.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Can be done to because the technology can be the
great equalizer, but it's only the great equalizer if everybody
has equal access to it. And so the solving and
closing the digital divide is going to create the environment
for that equal access. There's no reason why in the
US people should not have gigabit speed internet to their home.
(22:04):
But yet here we are today and that disparity still exists, right,
and the digital divide doesn't just exist in rural Iowa.
It exists in Harlem, right, it exists in South Central,
it exists in by the Way, my neighborhood. So it
exists everywhere. It's still and it's unfathomable that in the
(22:26):
this day and age that we still have these issues.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
But we still have them.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So I've taken them the digital divide as my personal
sort of sort of give back or you know, sort
of cause in utilizing my SAMO platform to move the
needle on something that's I think really important.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
And then in.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Personal life, my family, you know, I come from a
family of in service sort of minded people. My wife
is the same, probably even more so. She does a
lot of the charitable cause based work and the household
and it always has so what I lack and having
time to do sometimes I think she makes up tenfold.
(23:03):
Nice And then we've also taught our children about, you know,
about service, about doing good for others, and about having
that you know, that sort of service minded and give
back mindedness to round them out as good people and
good humans.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Thank you for sharing all that. Sounds like you have
a wonderful wife and a great family and you've taught
them well so that's very cool, especially with your busy
schedule that you have. I did want to ask you
one last thing before we get to the website, and
if people are interested in a career or want to
find out more about Qualcomm about is there anything that
we haven't talked about yet about Qualcom that you want
to make sure our listeners know about?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Don Well, I mean again, it's it's it's a company
that's existed for thirty five years, but most recently we
just start talking about ourselves in compelling ways, and so
we have you know, I love people to understand that
Qualcom is a company that is, you know, creating technology
that's really just changing people's lives every day and engineering
(24:00):
human progress and and uh and so that's that's one thing,
and and and so that would be one thing on
the Snapdragon side of things. I'd love for more individuals
and more consumers to understand that it's not just about
the the the device uh display, or about the colorful
you know, metal backing, or about you know, the materials
(24:24):
that are used on the outside.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Or even the logo on the outside.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
But what's making that work, what's making that tick, what's
creating the ability for you to have experiences that are human,
that are technology, that are technology driven, that are emotional,
whether it's through photography or music, or or or capturing
video and moments in your life, all of that is
(24:48):
enabled by snap Dragon. And and so Snapdragon it's it's
you know, it's really as evidenced by the by the
old adage, it's what's inside that counts, right and so
and so that would be one thing I'd love for
more people to know about. That's part of my mission
in my team's journey, is to make sure more people
know about.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
About Snapdragon and what snap Dragon.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Does for people and how it enables technology to work
for you. And so that those would be kind of
two things two messages I like to take away.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
That's wonderful and don there's so much to learn on
your website and they can anybody can find out more
about the products and the support and the company. Or
if they're interested in a career, what's the website that
they can all check that out at.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Theyn go to www.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Qualcomm dot com, forward slash careers and look at the
job postings there if they're interested in a career, and
they can also just you know that they can also
get in contact with us at at the website as well.
Surf around look at the different products and different technologies
that we develop and sell into the marketplace, and you
(25:55):
know we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Don This has been a real treat for me and
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your valuable time.
Please give my best to everybody at Qualcom, and thank
you so much for joining us on CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's been
a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
You've been listening to iHeartMedia's national CEOs you Should Know podcast.
To hear more interviews from this series, visit the iHeartRadio
app and search for CEOs you Should Know
iHeartMedia presents national CEOs you should know. Let's meet Don McGuire,
Chief Marketing Officer of Qualcom.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I am a product of southern California, pretty much lived
most of my life in San Diego, which I am
currently living in as well, and so I'm sort of
a native. I grew up in Salona Beach, California, which
was and still is a little beach community just about
(00:30):
twenty minutes north of downtown San Diego on the Pacific,
and graduated from high school there. I am a publicly
educated kid my entire life, public schools all the way through,
including university I went to. I'm a state school kid.
So I went to school California State University, Chico f
(00:50):
under grad and then graduated, and after bumming around Europe
for several months figuring out what I wanted to do
with my life, I took my first job and it
happened to be in the wireless communications industry, and you know,
from there, it's it's been a fun ride.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, it's been a great ride for you, and I
know you have so much more to do, and we
are here to talk a lot about what you're doing
at Qualcom now and all the different products that you
offer and the cool things, the innovations, technologies and what's
coming into the future that I'm really curious about. But
I did want to ask you about Qualcom, specifically about
you going there. You know, over six years with a company,
the last year and a half you've been the CMO.
(01:33):
I know what Qualcom saw on you by that unbelievable resume,
don But what did you see in Qualcomb that said
I've got to join that company.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Really was a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
You know, There's there's few companies in the world that
have invested in inventing technology that truly is societally changed
and so pervasive that it touches people's lives in so
(02:05):
many different ways over the course of a single day.
And so that is a pretty amazing sort of you know,
company mission or purpose and UH. And so that the
the what I what ideally drew me to join the
company was this opportunity for Qualcomm story to be better
(02:28):
told number one. Uh, the growth trajectory and the diversification
that the company had just begun to experience, you know,
beyond its organic growth.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It was also something that was very attractive to me
and the chance for me to kind of further my
career in owning the marketing you know, platform for and
across multiple business lines, you know, still in the technology space.
I've pretty much been a tech marketer my entire career,
but this opportunity to lean in to so many different
(03:04):
product categories that are impacting so many different business segments
and industries was a unique opportunity that I just couldn't
pass up.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Wonderful. Well, thank you for that. And you mentioned that
keyword mission and before we talk about any specificity with products,
and there are a lot of incredible ones that you
have currently and I know the future looks bright as
well for Qualcom, But what is the mission state for Qualcom?
What is the mission statement?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So the Qualcom as an organization, as a company, basically,
we're all about enabling a world where everyone and everything
can be intelligently connected.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
That is sort of the.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Elevator, you know, tweetable tweet mission statement for the organization.
And it comes down to really the engineering of human progress.
Right We're moving to a world where devices are becoming smarter,
and it's really an expansion outside of the number one
its coveted device in people's lives, which has been and
(04:03):
continues to be their smartphone into all these different types
of devices that people experience in their lives personally as
well as uh, you know, in business. And that extends,
you know, outside the phone, you know now to the PC,
where the PC has become a very very important communication device,
especially during the pandemic. It extends into smart things like
(04:25):
watches and earbuds and thermostats and vacuum cleaners and refrigerators
and watching machines, et cetera. That is kind of creating
this Internet of things for the home, but it also
extends to the business and the transportation and you know
are basically our cars are becoming just massive smart phones
on wheels, and technology is playing more and more of
(04:47):
a role in in how we conduct our lives, both
at work and at play and so and so that's
kind of this idea that everything is becoming smarter, everything's
becoming more connected both to each other as well as
to the cloud. And that immense amount of data that's
(05:09):
going to be flowing or is already flowing between devices
from device to the cloud, back to device and to
the environment around it is really our mission, our growth opportunity,
and our purpose and our mission.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I'm on your beautifully easy to navigate website right now,
and it really is a fun website to go check out,
and we'll give that at the end of our conversation.
But I'm looking by technology and application for your products,
and a lot of them I recognize a few I
don't because I'm a layman. But I would like you
to maybe talk about a couple of products, maybe technology,
your application that you're jazzed about not only because it's
(05:42):
really cool now, but you see an exciting future for
customers out there in your company.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Sure. And as chief marketing officer, I have sort of
two roles.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I play the role and my team plays the role
of business to business marketers, and that really has to
do with products and services and solutions that are all
calm branded that really go into enterprise or go into
you know, digital transform the digital transformation of industries. And
then I got the unique and pleasurable experience of of
(06:13):
of driving my team to also be more B two
C marketers in in the product lines that bear the
Snapdragon brand, and Snapdragon is a name that probably more
consumers would understand or would have heard of up to
this point, and in some markets around the world enjoys
you know, upwards of eighty five to eighty seven percent
(06:35):
brand awareness. And the Snapdragon suite of products are really
those are platforms that go into devices that people use
in their daily lives every day smartphones, PCs, earbuds, watches,
and cars and in the new emerging category of extended reality,
so mixed reality, augmented reality, and virtual reality. All those
(06:56):
devices that you may have touched or you may have purchase,
chances are they have snap Dragon platforms inside of them.
And so so that's the B two C side. The
B two B side is really about a suite of
solutions that help the digital transformation of enterprises and and
industries move forward. And a lot of those products range
(07:17):
from you know, sensors and cameras to to you know
drone platforms, uh to you know Wi Fi six six
e seven types of gateways, and to wireless infrastructure that's
really helping the the democratization of of of the networks.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
So a lot of very vast array of products. As
I said sort of the beginning of this.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Our technology is so pervasive and our rope map is
so extensible, there's a lot to do, and so so
we play in a lot of areas. And again, you know,
a business customer obviously will know the company and note
the types of solutions that we have. A consumer may
have heard of snap Dragon or understand that snapag and
is powering that amazing Stamsung Galaxy you know experience, or
(08:05):
those amazing bos headphones, or that you know, luxurious Louis
Vuitton watch smart watch. They may understand that, they may not.
You know, it's my team's mission to help them understand
that and and and to explain to them why that's important.
And then on the B two B side, conversely, it's
about you know, selling in and marketing o our vast
amount of solutions that are really helped that's really helping
(08:25):
with this this this macro trend of digital transformation. So
that's kind of how I look at the company, and
then how we sort of talk about our products within
those ecosystems.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
And then we also have technology.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Development that we do, uh and then and we license
that technology out to ecosystems. We develop these open platforms.
A lot of intellectual property is developed by our brilliant
inventors that you know sit in the halls and in
the offices and in the cubes and in the dining
(08:58):
halls of of our offices, and so that's also a
business for us. But all of that development of IP
goes into the product development process and manifests itself in
the products that we sell as well.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Well, thank you for sharing all that, And you know
you mentioned those scientists. I didn't want to share a
quick story with you and then ask you something, So
I had the fortuitanists to work in Raleigh, North Carolina
with a media company that also had a television station,
and they were the first local news broadcast to go
full time HD. And it was about twenty three, twenty
four years ago. Now it's hard to believe it's been
almost a couple of decades and then another five years
(09:34):
on top of that, but it was an exciting time
and it was life changing. It just was for all
of us. Everybody's got a television set. With that said,
is there anything in the Qualcom product family now that
over the next say, two five ten years is going
to be life changing for us?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well? Absolutely, I mean I think that, I think that
the beauty of our technology roadmap and the immense amount
of R and D that we do to drive these
generational changes in wireless connectivity, in high performance, low power compute,
as well as on device intelligence or AI is going
(10:12):
to manifest itself in amazing new products. I think what
we're going to see in the in the virtual and
augmented reality space, we're going to see what exists today.
It's smaller and lighter and more comfortable so that it
can be used in a more ubiquitous fashion. So and
these you know, these smart glasses or whatever you want
(10:33):
to call them, you could very well be.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
The next compute platform for people.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And I don't think it's it's it's far fetched to
say that over the next several years, you know, most
people will be walking around with some sort of smart
glass that they're using to augment their in real life experiences,
whether it's just through gathering of information about the world
around them the environment, whether it's communicating with people, whether
it's getting information about people that are going to communicate
(11:00):
with or meet, or whether it's finding their way from
point A to point B. All of these use cases,
which are very rational and practical, will manifest themselves through
some of these cool new products that will be coming
out over the next you know, two to five years.
On top of that I mentioned earlier cars. You know,
we see the massive electrification and the mass of the
(11:21):
massive transformation of the auto industry. Our our Snapdragon automotive
platforms are driving that transformation from you know, smart digital
cockpits and heads up displays to you know, wireless charging
inside the vehicle for your devices, right to wireless connectivity
that's connected to the cloud so that you can download
(11:42):
over the air updates, software updates to your car, which
in the past you would have had to make an
appointment to go in to the dealership and you know,
leave your car for twenty four to forty eight plus
hours in order to conduct that update. To Driver's assistance
right and which which is you know, normally referred to
as a DAS right, which is just assisted driving technology
(12:04):
and making the road safer, understanding when you might be
drowsy and suggesting that you pull over for a cup
of coffee or that you take a nap, giving you
more lane assistance, avoiding obstructions in the road, helping prevent accidents,
whether it's because of human error right, which is eighty
percent of all car accidents are basically human error driven.
(12:26):
Imagine eliminating that as a factor and how many lives
can be saved. So those are some of the things
just the tip of the iceberg that are coming down
the path, all powered by you know, the development of
the amazing technology that you know, the engineers, inventors and
folks at Qualcom have spent you know, blood, sweat and
(12:50):
tears developing over the past you know, ten to fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Well, don it sounds really exciting, and I can tell
you're jazzed up about it and passion about it and
not passionate about what I do. And I think that's
really the whole thing when to leadership and doing our
jobs out there, is having the passion first and then
the execution of leadership and everything else that I do.
Want to talk to you in just a second, but
your passion reminded me about how there's certain people in
my industry got me excited about the business. And you
(13:14):
don't have to name off a bunch of names, and
they don't have to be necessarily famous, but you know,
you've attained a pretty high level what you do now
a qualcomm in this industry. Is there anybody as you
were growing up, whether you were in school a lout
of school, as you were coming through Qualcomm that you
looked up to, and he said, I want to attain
that because that person's cool, they're innovative, they're doing things,
they're changing the world. I'm really excited about that. Do
(13:35):
you have a couple of people that had that impact
on your life.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Absolutely. I mean, I think it starts with my you know,
my father wasn't you know, a tech marketer. He was,
you know, he's the CEO of several companies that were
technology driven, but mostly on the wireless infrastructure or the
telephony infrastructure side of things.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
But he was, you know, he worked really really hard.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And and and ultimately achieved a high level of success.
And he was the he was the one who kind
of gave me the advice to get into, you know,
this this new category at the time, which was called
cellular technology. So I gave him a lot of credit
for starting me on my path. Other than that, I've
had several mentors. Look, I've had people I've worked for
(14:21):
that have been super amazing, people that I've been able
to emulate, that I've been able to learn from. And
then I've had people that worked for that have been
absolutely horrendous. But I've I've I've learned from both sides,
right You you learn what to do and and you
learn what not to do from those experiences. And and
(14:42):
there's a woman named Sue Swinson who was I worked
for several times in my career and she I considered
her a mentor of mine. And so there's there's lots
of those kind of examples along my journey of people
that have influenced me. And then you know, my family
for just being so supportive of of my journey. And
you know, I've got a schedule that puts me, you know,
(15:04):
on travel at fifty plus percent of the time pretty
much throughout my entire career. And so to have an
understanding family and being able to you know, be what
to focus on quality.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Over quantity, you know, as far as being engaged in
my children's lives things like that, I can't you know,
thank them enough.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well, thank you for sharing all of that. And that
leads us into leadership. And we always love to talk
to our cmos, our CEOs and just leaders in general
of their respective companies about what it takes to do
what you do. You know, A key buzzwords that we've
heard are you know, simple acknowledgment, hiring, the right people
to let them do what they do and don't over
(15:44):
manage them. Certain kind of cultures, having accessibility. So saying
all those things, maybe for all the people out there
that are budding cmos, CEOs or leaders for their small
or large business, what kind of advice do you have
them about what you've been through and what you've to today.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So I would start out with saying, you know, being
a leader, Uh, there's a difference between.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Being a manager and being a leader. And I think.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Leadership is it has some naturalness to it. You know,
there's the term natural born leader, right, and and so
I think that there are some natural characteristics that can
make help people start out as as relatively good and
strong leaders. But then I also think leadership is a
(16:32):
learned talent and a learned skill and and and it's
an ongoing process because you're always learning lessons in leadership
as you move through your life. And I think one
of the biggest lessons most recently was during this pandemic
that we've all experienced, and how leadership really required you
(16:52):
to dial in on empathy. Uh, you know, to have
the teams that you lead going through Yes, a similar experience,
meaning that we were all plagued by no pun intended
by this pandemic, but we were all experiencing it in
very different ways, right from detachment to mental health issues,
(17:16):
you know, to lack of engagement, to you know, living
situations and or working situations, family life being disrupted, all
those types of things. People were going through this in
very individual, in very personal ways, and you had to
recognize that, and as a leader, you had to be
able to help shepherd, you know, your teams through this experience,
(17:39):
understanding that it's affecting people in very different ways. So
you can't treat everybody the same way. You can't address
people's issues the same way. You have to really start
out with this empathetic sort of ear and then work
with them to unpack the issues and work through the
issues in a very personalized manner. So I think empathy
has never been more important as a leadership quality then
(18:03):
it has been over the last you know, two and
a half three years. And and so that's one one
thing I would say.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Another thing is, you know, command and control is dead.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Command and control does not work anymore, you know, especially
in the US right or most developed societies and cultures,
there are generational shifts that have happened from gen X
to gen Y, from gen Y to millennials, and from
millennials to gen Z, where the the access to information,
(18:36):
the independence of people starting so much earlier in their
lives that you can't lead by fear. You can't lead
and control and micromanage. It just doesn't work anymore. And
if you try to deploy or adopt a command and
control leadership style, it's going to backfire on you. It
(18:56):
has to be. Leadership is inclusive. Leadership is nurtrative. Leadership
is mentorship right in a lot of ways, And it's
it's moving the needle with a team of people and
bringing them along for the journey and and having it
be exciting and inspirational and collaborative and and sort of democratized.
(19:21):
And so I think that's one of the things that
again maybe ten years ago you had you saw glimmers
of that and certain leaders but I think it's it's
it's a staple to good leadership these days.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Is democratizing right the process.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And you know, we hear about that with Web three,
and we hear about democratization of the Internet and on
all sorts of other platforms. I think the democratized station
of leadership is another phenomenon that has existed, actually existed
for quite some time, but come into focus probably in
the last several years.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Well, Don, it's very insightful and thank you for sharing
all of that. I did want to ask you on
the sidebar about philanthropic and shared things. And we always
ask our CEOs and our cmos and our leaders. We
know how terribly busy you are. You've kind of explained
all the flights that you have to take in the
travel and away from your family. But when you and
your family or people at qual common that film, we
get a chance to do anything charitable or philanthropic.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So as all addressed like the company first and then
personal second. From a company perspective, we have a you know,
we have our qual Com Foundation, which does a ton
of monetary charitable giving around the world. We have our
qual Com for Good platform, which is how we utilize
our technology to lift up societies, lift up people's, lift
(20:39):
up economies.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Around the world, and through our wireless Reach program.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And then we also have our STEM program which is
called our think of It Labs, and our Think of
It Labs are really about promoting stem or steam or stream,
whatever acronym you want to use these days, and getting young,
specifically underserved people uh to get excited about about science, technology, engineering,
(21:05):
and math. And because the workforce of tomorrow is you know, diverse, right,
it's inclusive, and we need more people to be interested
in what, you know, what makes this amazing technology come
to life. And if we if we run out of
that labor force, right, progress is going to is going
(21:26):
to slow down. So that's from a company perspective, just
some of the things that we're engaged with on a
personal level. As part of my CMO platform, I've taken
on the digital divide and closing the digital divide as
a personal mission as the CMO and representative of Qualcomm.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I think there's more that.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Can be done to because the technology can be the
great equalizer, but it's only the great equalizer if everybody
has equal access to it. And so the solving and
closing the digital divide is going to create the environment
for that equal access. There's no reason why in the
US people should not have gigabit speed internet to their home.
(22:04):
But yet here we are today and that disparity still exists, right,
and the digital divide doesn't just exist in rural Iowa.
It exists in Harlem, right, it exists in South Central,
it exists in by the Way, my neighborhood. So it
exists everywhere. It's still and it's unfathomable that in the
(22:26):
this day and age that we still have these issues.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
But we still have them.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So I've taken them the digital divide as my personal
sort of sort of give back or you know, sort
of cause in utilizing my SAMO platform to move the
needle on something that's I think really important.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
And then in.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Personal life, my family, you know, I come from a
family of in service sort of minded people. My wife
is the same, probably even more so. She does a
lot of the charitable cause based work and the household
and it always has so what I lack and having
time to do sometimes I think she makes up tenfold.
(23:03):
Nice And then we've also taught our children about, you know,
about service, about doing good for others, and about having
that you know, that sort of service minded and give
back mindedness to round them out as good people and
good humans.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Thank you for sharing all that. Sounds like you have
a wonderful wife and a great family and you've taught
them well so that's very cool, especially with your busy
schedule that you have. I did want to ask you
one last thing before we get to the website, and
if people are interested in a career or want to
find out more about Qualcomm about is there anything that
we haven't talked about yet about Qualcom that you want
to make sure our listeners know about?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Don Well, I mean again, it's it's it's a company
that's existed for thirty five years, but most recently we
just start talking about ourselves in compelling ways, and so
we have you know, I love people to understand that
Qualcom is a company that is, you know, creating technology
that's really just changing people's lives every day and engineering
(24:00):
human progress and and uh and so that's that's one thing,
and and and so that would be one thing on
the Snapdragon side of things. I'd love for more individuals
and more consumers to understand that it's not just about
the the the device uh display, or about the colorful
you know, metal backing, or about you know, the materials
(24:24):
that are used on the outside.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Or even the logo on the outside.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
But what's making that work, what's making that tick, what's
creating the ability for you to have experiences that are human,
that are technology, that are technology driven, that are emotional,
whether it's through photography or music, or or or capturing
video and moments in your life, all of that is
(24:48):
enabled by snap Dragon. And and so Snapdragon it's it's
you know, it's really as evidenced by the by the
old adage, it's what's inside that counts, right and so
and so that would be one thing I'd love for
more people to know about. That's part of my mission
in my team's journey, is to make sure more people
know about.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
About Snapdragon and what snap Dragon.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Does for people and how it enables technology to work
for you. And so that those would be kind of
two things two messages I like to take away.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
That's wonderful and don there's so much to learn on
your website and they can anybody can find out more
about the products and the support and the company. Or
if they're interested in a career, what's the website that
they can all check that out at.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Theyn go to www.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Qualcomm dot com, forward slash careers and look at the
job postings there if they're interested in a career, and
they can also just you know that they can also
get in contact with us at at the website as well.
Surf around look at the different products and different technologies
that we develop and sell into the marketplace, and you
(25:55):
know we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Don This has been a real treat for me and
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your valuable time.
Please give my best to everybody at Qualcom, and thank
you so much for joining us on CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's been
a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
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