Inside Snapdragon with June’s Snapdragon Insider of the Month

Snapdragon Insiders: You’re in for a treat. We’ve been introducing you to members of this community for a while now, and we love shining the spotlight on you. Now for June, we’re shaking things up, with a very special Snapdragon *Insider* of the month — meet Deb (LinkedIn), Vice President of Product Marketing at Qualcomm. 

Deb is one of the many faces behind some of your favorite Snapdragon technologies. She’s passionate about Snapdragon, the power of innovation, and what the new Snapdragon X Series means for PCs.

Welcome, Deb! Can you tell us a bit about what you do at Snapdragon?

Hi! I’m Vice President of Product Marketing at Qualcomm, and I oversee all of the Snapdragon products (mobile, compute, XR, wearables, etc.) and I also oversee integrated marketing for Snapdragon across the team. I’ve been at Qualcomm almost 17 years now, so I’ve gotten to see a lot of industry changes first-hand. 

What was your journey to get to Qualcomm?

In my early career, I started at an advertising agency before entering into tech, first with a small startup, and then at LG in the mobile phones division. This was in the era where it was new to have a camera on your cell phone. The idea that people would use their phones for anything more than phone calls was crazy, and I found it super interesting that Qualcomm wanted to put TV and entertainment onto a smart device. I joined the company and started working on FLO TV. People thought it was nuts, that no one would want to watch a movie or TV show on their phone. And now here we are, in a world we can’t imagine not having entertainment and a camera on our phones.  

What excites you about working on Snapdragon? 

I love working on Snapdragon because of its strong history of innovation. The Snapdragon brand has always represented the best device performance and long battery life and, as a consumer, that’s exactly what I want for all my devices. As we expand the reach of Snapdragon to a broader consumer base, the experience of working on it becomes increasingly rewarding. We still deliver on the leading technology and innovation but now we’re adding a new level of experiences for consumers.

What role do you think Snapdragon is going to play in the evolution of mobile devices?

We’re a tech leader and every year we set the bar for what consumers should look for with innovation in their devices, whether it's smartphones, PCs, XR/AR devices, a handheld gaming unit, or other devices. Our technology is powering not only what’s available to consumers’ experience today, but also for tomorrow. Snapdragon is a leader in the mobile computing space and what that really means for consumers is that if you buy Snapdragon, you’re a step ahead of the rest.

What do you think sets Snapdragon apart? 

When I think about Snapdragon and what sets us apart from an industry perspective, it’s our heterogeneous computing platform. We've been perfecting that since the beginning of Snapdragon as a brand. What does that mean? We’ve taken all the parts of computing and optimized them to work together. For consumers, everything you do, whether you’re opening a web browser or an email, searching for a document or watching a movie, has been optimized to run on the right core so that you're not taxing your CPU or GPU when you should be using your NPU and vice versa. That optimization is part of what gives you the longer battery life and power performance that you deserve in your devices.

Everyday tech users don’t need to know those details, they just need to know it seamlessly works. That's what I love about Snapdragon — at a tech level, our heterogeneous computing gives us a competitive differentiator. And at the consumer level, we don’t have to explain it because it just works.

PCs powered by Snapdragon X Elite are launching this month — what most excites you about these launches?

I’m most excited about the fact that we’re about to change how people use their PCs. I've been in a couple of inflection points in my career — I talked a little bit about cameras coming to mobile phones, entertainment coming to smartphones. These points were times when everybody said “we don't need it, no one will use that, I just use my phone for phone calls.” And yet, we brought innovation that changed the way everybody used their devices, and we're doing that again with PCs. We’re bringing something new to the market that’s going to be super exciting. It's going to save people time. It's going to be intuitive and smart and personalized to them. The battery is going to last and it’s going to have the performance they’re looking for. Once consumers realize how easy their life can become, how those mundane tasks get taken care of for them by on-device AI, they’re going to wonder why the old PC manufactures didn’t provide this innovation and experience for them. 

I think this is one of those inflection points where, in a few years, we’ll look back and say, “How did we ever live without it?” 

Is there one specific use case that is going to be a game changer for consumers with Snapdragon X Elite?

One specific application? I don’t think so, because each consumer is an individual person that will have different things that need to be curated for them. This is some of the brilliance of Snapdragon. What Snapdragon does is bring it on device, so it can be personalized to you and not shared with the rest of the world. Our technologies’ capability to keep your information private and on your device, versus in the cloud where everybody can see it, is key to this being successful for consumers to adopt it. From there, the personalization and use cases are up to you.

Now onto some personal questions… If you were stranded on an island, what one piece of Snapdragon powered technology would you want to have with you? 

That’s like asking me to pick a favorite child. I’d have to say all of them. They work so seamlessly together and I can’t have a favorite. That said, any device with Snapdragon will provide me with the longest battery life and the best experiences, so I’d take any of them. Wait, I still didn’t pick, did I? One of each, please!

If you were going to create a time capsule to be opened in 50 years, what Snapdragon powered device would you put in it?

I’d want to put one device of each category — smartphone, laptop, XR — in there. In 50 years, we’re going to have revolutionized the technology industry again and again, across all of these sectors. So, if you put a smartphone or a PC or an AR/XR device in there and looked at it in 50 years, you’d be blown away by how far we’ve come. Given the pace of technology over the past 10 years, even the most cutting-edge technology we have today is going to look simple in 50 years. I hope I’m around to open that capsule and be proud of all the innovation. 

What advice would you give to someone considering joining the Snapdragon Insiders community?

First, do it. It’s an amazing group of people with a passion for technology. Second, after you join, I highly recommend you utilize the community that's already there and dig in and find out what you love about it, because we’re a very fun brand and community. If your thing is gaming or photography or food or travel, you're gonna find some way that Snapdragon relates to your life. You’ll find that this community is super excited to help and give you ideas of new ways to pursue whatever your passion is.

What is your favorite aspect of the Snapdragon Insiders community?

My favorite aspect of the Snapdragon Insiders community is their energy and enthusiasm. Everybody is different in the community, and yet they can all rally around the power and performance of Snapdragon technology and how it impacts their life. That energy is contagious. 

What are you most excited about with Snapdragon X Elite? Head over to Discord to discuss.