33: Building a Powerhouse for the Smartphone Era: Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm




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Summary: It's been about 10 years since the debut of the modern smartphone, when Apple's iPhone first went on sale. One of the companies that has most defined this decade? Qualcomm. Leading the charge at Qualcomm for most of that time has been executive chairman Paul Jacobs. His father Irwin co-founded the company, and Paul helped build it into a power broker in mobile computing. Qualcomm designs the chips that serve as the brains for most premium Android phones, and its patented technology is in pretty much every smartphone on the market. That has earned the company a stock market value that's now over $160 billion. I sat down with Paul Jacobs at CNBC headquarters for a conversation about some of his defining moments, and what's next.