AMD vs McDonald's: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: AMD and McDonald's side by side

1. 1940McDonald's

   First McDonald's Opens in San Bernardino

   Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald's restaurant on May 15, 1940 in San Bernardino, California. The original drive-in gave the brothers a live operating laboratory before they stripped the model down to a faster, lower-cost menu.

2. 1948McDonald's

   Speedee Service System Introduced

   The brothers simplified operations in 1948 around 15-cent hamburgers, shakes, and fries.

3. 1955McDonald's

   Ray Kroc Opens Des Plaines Restaurant

   Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955 after becoming the brothers' franchise agent. That restaurant became the base for converting a California operating idea into a national franchise system.

4. 1961McDonald's

   Hamburger University Opens

   Hamburger University opened in the basement of an Elk Grove Village, Illinois restaurant in 1961. The training program mattered because it formalized the standards and operating routines that franchisees needed to deliver a consistent experience.

5. 1961McDonald's

   Kroc Buys the Brothers' Company

   McDonald's says it acquired the rights to the brothers' company in 1961 for $2.7 million. The deal gave Kroc control of the name and system, setting up the real estate-backed franchise model that later defined parent-company economics.

6. 1968McDonald's

   Big Mac Added to National Menu

   The Big Mac, developed by owner-operator Jim Delligatti of Pittsburgh, was added to the national menu in 1968. It became a durable core product and a recognizable signal of the company's ability to turn franchisee ideas into systemwide menu platforms.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 1975McDonald's

   Egg McMuffin Builds Breakfast

   The Egg McMuffin, created by owner-operator Herb Peterson of Santa Barbara, California, was added to the national menu in 1975. It helped turn breakfast into a major daypart rather than leaving the restaurants dependent on lunch and dinner traffic.

10. 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.

11. 2003McDonald's

    I'm Lovin' It Campaign Launches

    McDonald's launched its global "I'm lovin' it" marketing campaign in 2003, its first worldwide brand campaign.

12. 2005AMD

    Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel

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

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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…

18. 2017McDonald's

    Global McDelivery Day with UberEATS

    McDonald's marked Global McDelivery Day in 2017 to support the broader launch of McDelivery with UberEATS. Delivery expanded restaurant reach beyond the counter and drive-thru, while also adding packaging, marketplace-fee, and kitchen-throughput challenges.

19. 2019McDonald's

    Dynamic Yield Acquisition

    McDonald's agreed to acquire Dynamic Yield in 2019 to personalize drive-thru menu boards, kiosks, and app experiences using signals such as time of day, weather, restaurant traffic, and trending items.

20. 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.

21. 2024McDonald's

    Quarter Pounder E. Coli Outbreak

    U.S. Public health agencies linked a 2024 E. Coli outbreak to slivered onions served on McDonald's Quarter Pounders in affected states.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 2025McDonald's

    $26.9B FY2025 Revenue

    McDonald's reported $26.885 billion in FY2025 revenue and $8.563 billion in net income.

26. 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.

Acquisitions

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