Looking beyond the chip frontier

A watch made with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. [Photo/Agencies]

Will Qualcomm diversify its business to areas outside of mobile chip making?

I think so. Even outside of China, people see the product that they interact with the most and that forms their opinion of a company.

In the keynote speech I did in the Consumer Electronics Show, I talked about all these different areas that we were involved with, and people said wow, I thought you guys just made chips.

Yet here you guys are doing things with NASCAR and Sesame Street, and all of these things that they thought were outside of us.

But it was because we were getting ready for this idea that wireless was going to be an enabling technology for a lot of different areas.

So we were building all the relationships for that and somethings take longer than others. The healthcare space has taken a very long time for us to build the kinds of relationships that we need to progress.

What is the secret of your business success in China?

I think that we will be a very good partner as focus on being a good partner. And we also bring great technology. We push the edge on technology all the time.

How has your style of management changed over time in China?

I think the idea of partnership is really critical here, and I think our style used to be very San Diego centric.

We are still learning over time and we are still not perfect. But we have learnt over time that we have to be part of the ecosystem here in China.

How do you motivate your international team and your local employees?

We motivate local employees the same way that we motivate everybody.

I mean, you want to be a leader, and you want to be part of something bigger than yourself.

We talked a lot about how every individual of Qualcomm is contributing on something that can improve people's life all around the world.

And if you have an idea, no matter where you are, that idea can be a global idea very quickly in Qualcomm. It is an opportunity for us and it is a responsibility for us.