AMD vs Cardinal Health: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: AMD and Cardinal Health side by side

1. 1969AMD

   Advanced Micro Devices Founded

   Jerry Sanders and seven colleagues from Fairchild Semiconductor founded AMD on May 1, 1969, and broke ground that year on the 915 DeGuigne building in Sunnyvale, California, which remained the headquarters for more than 47 years.

2. 1971Cardinal Health

   Cardinal Foods Founded by Robert D. Walter

   Robert D. Walter, a 26-year-old Harvard MBA graduate, borrowed $1.3 million to acquire the food-distribution division of Consolidated Foods in a leveraged buyout, establishing Cardinal Foods in Columbus, Ohio.

3. 1975AMD

   Entry Into Microprocessors

   AMD entered the microprocessor market in 1975, moving beyond the logic devices it started with. The decision put it into direct competition with Intel and made x86 compatibility the center of its business for the next four decades.

4. 1979Cardinal Health

   Pivot to Pharmaceutical Distribution

   Walter acquired Bailey Drug Co., a pharmaceutical distributor in Zanesville, Ohio, marking Cardinal's entry into pharmaceutical distribution.

5. 1983Cardinal Health

   Cardinal Distribution Goes Public

   Cardinal Distribution Inc. completed its initial public offering on the NASDAQ at $1.03 per share, providing capital for continued expansion through acquisitions.

6. 1984Cardinal Health

   Acquisition of Ellicott Drug

   Cardinal acquired Ellicott Drug, a pharmaceutical distributor in Buffalo, New York, continuing the acquisition-driven expansion strategy that would define the company's growth for decades.

7. 1988Cardinal Health

   Sale of Food Operations to Roundy's Inc.

   Cardinal sold its remaining food operations to Roundy's Inc., completing the company's transition from a diversified food and drug distributor to a pure-play pharmaceutical distribution company.

8. 1994Cardinal Health

   Name Change to Cardinal Health

   The company changed its name from Cardinal Distribution to Cardinal Health, reflecting its expanding mission beyond pure distribution into healthcare services, manufacturing, and technology. Revenues exceeded $1 billion by 1991.

9. 1995Cardinal Health

   Acquisition of Medicine Shoppe International

   Cardinal acquired Medicine Shoppe International, the country's largest franchise of retail pharmacies, marking the company's first significant non-distribution acquisition and entry into retail pharmacy.

10. 1996Cardinal Health

    Acquisition of Pyxis Corp.

    Cardinal acquired Pyxis Corp., a manufacturer of automated supply and pharmaceutical dispensing systems for hospitals, adding medical technology capabilities to the company's portfolio.

11. 1999AMD

    Athlon Breakthrough

    Athlon launched in 1999 and matched or beat Intel on desktop performance. In March 2000 AMD announced the first 1 GHz x86 processor, days ahead of Intel, which changed how enthusiasts and PC makers judged the company.

12. 1999Cardinal Health

    Acquisition of Allegiance Healthcare Corp.

    Cardinal acquired Allegiance Healthcare Corp. for approximately $4.4 billion, becoming a major player in the medical-surgical products market and establishing the foundation for what would become the Global Medical Products and Distribution segment.

13. 2005AMD

    Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel

    AMD sued Intel in 2005, alleging rebates and exclusionary practices that limited its access to PC makers.

14. 2006AMD

    ATI Technologies Acquired

    AMD acquired ATI Technologies in 2006 for about $5.4B to add graphics and chipsets. The debt-funded deal strained the balance sheet just as Intel shipped Core 2, but ATI became the basis for Radeon graphics, console APUs, and later Instinct accelerators.

15. 2009AMD

    Fabless Pivot Through GlobalFoundries

    AMD moved its manufacturing operations into GlobalFoundries in 2009 and stopped owning fabs. The change removed billions of annual capital spending and let AMD buy leading-edge capacity, but it also tied the product roadmap to outside foundries.

16. 2011AMD

    Bulldozer Architecture Failure

    Bulldozer traded single-thread performance for core count at a time when most software depended on per-core speed. Reviews were poor, PC maker confidence fell, and server share collapsed, which is what forced the clean-sheet Zen project.

17. 2013Cardinal Health

    Red Oak Sourcing Joint Venture with CVS

    Cardinal Health and CVS Caremark announced the creation of Red Oak Sourcing, a 50/50 joint venture to form the largest generic pharmaceutical sourcing entity in the United States. The venture began operations in July 2014 with an initial 10-year term.

18. 2014AMD

    Lisa Su Becomes CEO

    AMD's board appointed Lisa Su president and CEO on October 8, 2014, succeeding Rory Read. She narrowed the company around high-performance computing and put the engineering budget behind the Zen CPU core rather than spreading it across incremental projects.

19. 2014Cardinal Health

    Loss of Walgreens Contract

    Cardinal Health lost a major pharmaceutical distribution contract with Walgreens, which shifted its distribution to AmerisourceBergen. The contract had generated $3.3 billion in quarterly revenue.

20. 2017AMD

    Ryzen, EPYC, and Chiplets Rebuild AMD

    Zen reached the market in 2017 as Ryzen for desktops and EPYC for servers. Chiplet packaging over Infinity Fabric let AMD build high core-count parts from smaller dies, improving usable yield and giving it a cost structure Intel's monolithic designs could not…

21. 2017Cardinal Health

    Acquisition of Patient Recovery Business from Medtronic

    Cardinal Health acquired the Patient Recovery business from Medtronic for $6.1 billion, expanding its medical products portfolio and adding significant scale to the Global Medical Products and Distribution segment.

22. 2022AMD

    Xilinx Acquisition

    AMD completed the Xilinx acquisition in February 2022. The all-stock deal was announced in October 2020 at about $35B and was worth roughly $49B at close.

23. 2024Cardinal Health

    OptumRx Contract Non-Renewal Announced

    Cardinal Health's pharmaceutical distribution contracts with OptumRx (part of UnitedHealth Group) expired at the end of June 2024 and were not renewed. They represented about $38.1 billion of fiscal 2024 revenue.

24. 2025AMD

    ZT Systems Acquired and Its Factories Sold

    AMD closed the ZT Systems purchase on March 31, 2025, paying $3.2B in cash plus 8.3 million shares for rack-scale AI systems design.

25. 2025AMD

    OpenAI Agrees to Deploy 6 Gigawatts of AMD GPUs

    On October 6, 2025 AMD and OpenAI announced a multi-year agreement covering 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs, starting with a 1 gigawatt Instinct MI450 deployment in the second half of 2026.

26. 2025AMD

    Record $34.6B Revenue

    AMD reported FY2025 revenue of $34.6B, up 34%, with net income of $4.3B and a 50% gross margin.

27. 2025Cardinal Health

    Fiscal 2025 Results and Raised FY2026 Guidance

    Cardinal Health reported fiscal 2025 revenue of $222.6 billion, down about 2% after the OptumRx contract expiration, while net earnings rose to about $1.6 billion.

28. 2026AMD

    Meta Agrees to Deploy Up to 6 Gigawatts of AMD GPUs

    On February 24, 2026 AMD and Meta announced a multi-year agreement for up to 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs.

29. 2026Cardinal Health

    Fiscal 2026 Revenue Reaches $254.2 Billion

    Fiscal 2026 revenue rose 14% to $254.2 billion and non-GAAP EPS rose 37% to $11.26, with profit growth in all five operating segments.

Acquisitions

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