Secret of TI’s Success: Think Like Owners

The 2025 estimated opening of the new Texas Instruments (TI) semiconductor plant in Sherman couldn’t be more timely, considering a global shortage of microchips.

Yet the project is part of the company’s long-term plans to succeed in a rapidly changing world projected to need semiconductors, said 2023 Chair-Elect of the Dallas Regional Chamber (DRC) Board of Directors Rafael Lizardi, who is also TI’s Chief Financial Officer.

More than 80 attended the DRC’s Q1 Tomorrow Fund Investors Breakfast, where Lizardi was keynote speaker. He said the leaders of Texas Instruments run the company as if they are long-term owners, and that approach helps remove a lot of uncertainty from day-to-day decisions.

“When you are detached from the day-to-day, quarter-to-quarter mentality, you think about the longer term,” Lizardi said. “It helps you make smarter, better decisions for the company and for all the stakeholders.”

Texas Instruments is adding six 300-millimeter fabrication plants, including new facilities in Richardson and Sherman, Lizardi said. By 2030, TI expects to nearly double its revenue due to increased plant production.

Lizardi illustrated the growing demand for microchips — particularly in industrial and automotive applications — this way: “Ten years ago or so, the average vehicle had about $80 to $90 of semiconductors; nowadays it’s about $300. But if you look at a Tesla Model S, that’s about $1,200.”

Lizardi said part of being a good neighbor is the company’s commitment to education, human services, racial equity, and the arts. Of the $415 million the company has given to communities since 2010, $28 million went to education grants in 2021. Another $15 million went to research facilities at UT Southwestern and the University of Texas at Dallas.

“Our primary focus is on education,” Lizardi said. “We think that’s the best long-term investment in communities.”

TI was given the DRC’s Building Tomorrow Together award at the event. MP Materials, which owns and operates Mountain Pass, the only integrated rare earth mining and processing site in North America, also received a Building Tomorrow Together award. Matt Sloustcher, MP Materials’ Senior Vice President of Communications and Policy, accepted the award at the breakfast.

“This just doesn’t exist in the Western Hemisphere, so large manufacturers largely have to rely on overseas production to make the vehicles and other components here,” Sloustcher said. “Semiconductors and rare-earth magnets are now sort of fundamental building blocks of the modern economy.”

Also speaking at the breakfast was DRC Senior Vice President of Public Policy Matt Garcia, who told Tomorrow Fund investors to contact their state-level officials to encourage them to enact new incentives legislation to help Texas continue to attract major manufacturing jobs and facilities.

“We’re going to need the help and support of everyone in this room,” Garcia said. “Whether you’re at a breakfast meeting, a rotary club meeting or other executive meetings, it’s going to take a big effort to make sure we are all sharing how critical a tool like this is.”