That’s overly simplistic. Everyone of AMD’s CEOs was an engineer; not an MBA[1]:

* Jerry Sanders | 1969—2002 | Founder, electrical engineer * Hector Ruiz | 2002—2008 | Electrical engineer * Dirk Meyer | 2008—2011 | Computer engineer * Rory Read | 2011—2014 | Information Systems * Lisa Su | 2014—present | Electrical engineer

And yet only two of them (Jerry and Lisa) are considered truly successful at running the company and one decent at keeping things afloat (Rory). The real answer is much more complex and has to do with Intel’s constant monopolistic actions against AMD; some internal struggles (overheating issues early on, bad laptop support, spinning off business divisions right before they were set to be wildly valuable [Adreno, Spansion, etc], wildly overpaying for ATI, etc).

While Jerry and Lisa are both great CEOs for the company, and all credit belongs to them for their leadership; AMD’s woes were simply more complex than that.

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices

I dont know much about all of the CEO's of AMD. However the grandparent comment said not to defer to MBA's not that the CEO was an MBA

What i have seen in other companies is that even if the CEO is a subject matter expert, they get to the level of CEO then start deferring business matters to the MBA's who are viewed as subject matter experts of business. This weak leadership and difference to MBA's often leads to extreme short term thinking and lack of vision centered around quarterly probability statements not around core competences or a vision for making the companies product good

I always say it’s easier to teach an engineer business than it is to teach an MBA engineering. Not shit-talking MBAs since I am one, but the degree doesn’t confer knowledge; only that you passed a selection filter and probably have an extensive network of other people who passed the filter.

Don’t shy away from learning the business. The hardest part of my MBA was accounting — and you can take an accounting class at community college.

That, and avoiding being put down by MBAs who think you’re encroaching on their turf.

I’m a big proponent of domain drive design, at least in principle, but I’ve yet to meet the manager who’s going to let developers “waste” the time of the domain experts on “pointless minutiae” instead of just shutting up and writing the damned software.