A Conversation with Toto Wolff and Don McGuire at Snapdragon Summit

Daniel Newman: Hey everyone. The Six Five is On the Road. We are here in Maui, beautiful Maui for the Snapdragon Summit 2024. Excited to be with you all. Have a great conversation today about something that I’m personally very passionate about, Motorsports, automotive, technology, we’re bringing it all together. And for this episode, we have a very special guest and a guest that we also find very special that we’ve had many times before. Don McGuire, CMO of Qualcomm-

Don McGuire: Hey Dan.

Daniel Newman: … joining. Good to have you back so many times. And a first timer on the show and someone I’m very excited to meet and have with us, Toto Wolf, CEO, AMG, Petronas F1 Team Mercedes. So excited to have you with us. Okay.

Toto Wolff: Thank you, Dan.

Daniel Newman: Toto, I got to start with you, since it’s first time on the show. You’re here in Maui, Hawaii at the Snapdragon Summit, a technology show. You got PCs, you got phones, and Snapdragon made a bunch of announcements about automotive. What brings you here to Hawaii?

Toto Wolff: Well, Qualcomm, Snapdragon and Mercedes, we have a great relationship. Obviously with Don on the marketing side, we’re trying to create experiences that haven’t been seen before and there’s so much of the mindset that overlaps. We are in a high-tech environment, cutting-edge technology. It’s about speed and I think what we are already doing on the virtual reality side and the virtual garage and going forward on possibly AI solutions is amazing. So me being here is just not a courtesy to show up or Don’s event, but literally trying to push ahead with our technologies.

Daniel Newman: Yeah, and it’s great Don. I saw the Snapdragon right there on the halo. I was in Austin this weekend at the GP, and of course you always watch the race in two dimensions. There’s so much experience stuff going on right now, but you watch it on the track as your driver goes by wherever you are. And then you’re watching it on the TV because you want to get all the positioning. I bet XR is going to come into play here at some point.

Don McGuire: Oh for sure.

Daniel Newman: But Don, what’s the reason that Qualcomm and the Snapdragon wanted to be so connected to such an exciting team?

Don McGuire: Well, I mean it’s really about from a brand perspective, how do we connect with fans around their passions? And sport happens to be something a lot of people are passionate about. You are especially.

Daniel Newman: Absolutely.

Don McGuire: So F1 has passionate fans. We have a connection from a technology product perspective with automotive, and our growth in automotive. A lot of automotive innovation starts in F1, and then we get to grow a brand affinity through the fandom that F1 has created. So it’s just a triangulation of everything that makes sense for us and to invest in and to nurture. And then of course it’s who do you pick to work with, and that really matters. So we believe, and Toto and I have talked about this in the past, that we share brand and cultural pillars that overlap quite well, that really the partnership that much more effective. And so I’m happy to be a partner of the Mercedes Formula One team.

Daniel Newman: There’s a bit of an ethos. I was in Vegas last year for that first inaugural race and I went over to the experience that you were delivering, that Qualcomm and Snapdragon was doing, and it was really a wonderful experience. Cool first race. I mean, it was odd trying to stay up so late. All of us, you’re minding through the day.

Don McGuire: There’s no clocks in Vegas.

Daniel Newman: It was an amazing, amazing experience. Can’t wait for the second year. It always gets better as they do these events over and over in different spaces. Toto, you alluded to this in the beginning. You talked about how what you’re doing at F1 is at the cutting edge, it’s at the leading edge of all things technologically automotive. Talk a little about what you’re so excited about. Where’s this heading in your mind?

Toto Wolff: First of all, in Las Vegas, we had this pothole that got undone. Everything was delayed. I’ve never had a practice session at four o’clock in the morning, and we all headed to the hotel when it was bright daylight. So that was a bit like a surreal experience, but I guess dealing problems with the Grand Prix first time and we’re really looking forward to go to Las Vegas. You talk about high-tech, cutting edge, we love the sport because it’s so brutally honest. The stopwatch never lies. In all other businesses you can come up with explanations why things aren’t the way they are. Look at politics, how things are being said that are not very accurate sometimes. And here, you’re either fast enough or not. And you can see that on the stopwatch. That means all the innovation we are doing, all the technology development is for that sole purpose of going faster with the race cut and the competition.

Daniel Newman: Yeah, there’s a ton of innovation and it’s not just like once a year, it’s progressive. Every weekend you hear about this team did this set of upgrades. And by the way, this year has been fantastic because there’s so much parity. You go back and forth, which has probably been missing a bit over the past few seasons, but this year, every week it’s a different team showing up. That’s made it a lot more fun this year.

Toto Wolff: Yeah, well I mean it’s seven different winners this year. Lewis and George, then Sainz and Leclerc, then Norris and Piastri and then Verstappen. So we won three races before the summer. We set the benchmark, now Mercedes is on the roll. We come back in the summer, we are not on the roll anymore because we bought an upgrade and these cars are in a way so on the edge in terms of where they create the downforce through the floor, that you can just a millimeter out of the window and you’re not competitive and that makes it so exciting also.

Daniel Newman: So with all the technology, Don, we have this great sport that’s caught fire, the show, drive to survive. One of the stars gotten to know you a little bit through that first time meeting in person, which is great. But you talked about experience, so how does this, you’re driving experiences inside vehicles. You got some great announcements here. The Snapdragon Ride Elite platform. You are delivering experiences in XR with wearables. I keep thinking at some point these cars need to be going on the track with a pair of glasses on so I can watch both. What are some of the experiences and immersive things that you’re thinking about with these relationships, with F1 and with soccer, man? You got all this going on.

Don McGuire: Yeah, it’s been fun. We’re just getting started. I think the virtual garage is a great first start. Toto came to San Diego, did a bunch of demos and product experiences and then we were talking and he said, “I’d like to bring the garage experience to more fans.” And so we said, “Well, we can do that virtually, we can make it immersive.” And then we worked for almost a year on that, collectively with the Mercedes team and some of our development partners. And then we delivered it in season in the Vegas club, the Miami Club, et cetera. And I think that’s just one step.

But there’s lots of things we can do to make the fan experience more immersive and we talked about it at dinner last night. We talked about it over the course of our contact throughout the race season and so we’re excited about where we can go because we’re just getting started. But also, I’m really happy and really excited about where Formula One is going from a fandom perspective. And it was once a very exclusive type of experience and it’s becoming a more accessible and inclusive type of experience and that’s what excites me as well.

Daniel Newman: Yeah, 400 some odd thousand people in our hometown, my hometown of Austin. As long as you’re not trying to get on a flight out of town that night because the whole city is jammed up, the fandom is pretty incredible. By the way, Toto, you are focused on doing more investing in the sport, F1 Academy for instance. You’ve chosen to really get behind that. Talk a little bit about the thinking there and about the investment. What’s going on with you and the team and the investment in F1 Academy?

Toto Wolff: The sport is on fire because I think many decisions that have been taken were right. First of all, you mentioned the show that was a big success. Next year we’re going to have the Brad Pitt movie that’s, I think, going to give it the big push. There is exciting racing like we discussed before, and it’s authentic. And because of that we have one and a half billion people that are watching our races. 400,000 in Austin, and I believe that Austin last year with 430,000 was the single biggest event in the United States last year. So you see how far Formula One has come. In terms of Formula One Academy, it’s a great project that is close to my heart for two reasons. First of all, my wife Susie runs it as a managing director and I have seen her coming up through the ranks, eventually going into Formula One as a test driver and being out on track on a race weekend.

But that last step, nobody was actually courageous enough to put her in the car, although the lap times were there. And she decided to pursue the mission to help find the next female Formula One driver. And that’s not easy because it starts with grassroots sports in karting. In the past you would’ve a hundred karters and maybe two girls, now you have 10. I said in the interview, it’s 20 and she said, “You’ve got to get your numbers correct. It’s 10. We are not yet where we want to be.” And Formula One Academy is providing that platform that is highly visible to female racers to showcase what they do. We have Dorian, which we are really pushing strong between Snapdragon and Mercedes, and that’s eventually going to grow a bigger provide an inspirational platform for young females that want to go into sport. And we as Mercedes, we believe we have to be all in on that.

Daniel Newman: No, that’s great. As a father of two older daughters, I love for them to want to get into racing, but-

Toto Wolff: It shouldn’t be only the racing on the car. I think diversity in the team, that’s-

Daniel Newman: Absolutely. They would want to go out and drive fast. I mean, who doesn’t want that? Let’s pivot a minute to the tech and the data. We started off talking about the highest performance. This event is all about data. Everybody knows that there’s a lot going on. You’ve got the row out there of engineers looking at data. Then inside the garage, you’ve got more engineers looking at the data. You’ll hear the conversations going on between the drivers and sometimes you and the other engineers on the radio telling you what’s going on. How much is really going on? How much data is there, and how much can you really react to things in real time?

Toto Wolff: Tons of data, and we have 700 sensors on the car in some of the sessions. And you got to filter the noise from the data that are relevant for that very session or for the development of the car. And that’s the complication of the sport. But it’s also what makes it so fascinating.

Daniel Newman: Yeah, it is a lot of fun. I sometimes hear, you’ll hear the drivers either complaining something’s not right, and then there’s always the mix of conversations. Sometimes you guys come back and be like, “It’s fine, Lewis or George just keep going.” Or then other times you’re like, “Yeah, there’s a problem. We’re looking at it.” It’s so fluid, it’s so fast. And I mean it’s just miraculous to see, because everything from the tire wear, to the adjustments you make on the wings and it’s hundreds or even thousands of seconds aggregated over the course of a race that makes a difference between a potential win or even a potential podium and not. So one other thing though is, I’ve seen a lot of efforts around sustainability in the sport, you’re cranking out thousands of horsepower, but you’re trying to do it in a way that’s as sustainable as possible as well. How is the push and pull of getting that done? Because I mean, we’ve obviously seen electric vehicles can be incredibly powerful. We hear about battery charge all the time, but at the same time, I know motorsports, people love the horsepower. What’s the give and take there?

Toto Wolff: You’re an old dinosaur. You want to hear the noise?

Daniel Newman: Oh, hearing that noise. Is that okay?

Toto Wolff: That’s okay. Fundamentally it’s an audiovisual-

Don McGuire: Just doesn’t seem like a race without the noise.

Toto Wolff: Yeah, it needs to be.

Daniel Newman: You hear the Carrera Cup that always goes before those cars are loud.

Toto Wolff: Loud, yeah. It’s audiovisual. You have an electric car that goes 200 miles an hour in front of your eyes and an eight-cylinder that does 150 miles and you think it’s much faster than the electric car. So that is still a perception thing and the noise is needed. But when you speak about Formula One, it’s counterintuitive to talk about sustainability, but it is a 100% not. Because we have been always at the forefront of developing solutions for the auto industry. And we have a hybrid engine today, with about 20% of what we have in total power output. And in 2026 we’re going to have 50% electric, 50% combustion, but all of that with biofuel, waste-based biofuel. And as we are going through the energy transition, EVs are not having the traction that we all believe they have because of a lack of infrastructure, et cetera. The Mercedes cars, by the way, the electric are great, but it lacks infrastructure. So biofuel is what’s going to propel the cars for a long time.

Hybrid technology, that’s one thing. The other thing is we are having one and a half billion people that are watching us and we want to demonstrate that our racing cars going around the track for no reason actually, just entertainment. We can make this sustainable by showcasing how we travel. We are investing lots of money into sustainable aviation fuel. We are fueling our trucks in Europe with HVO. We’ve reduced the emissions on those trucks by 90% using biofuels for our generators. And by showing the world is if you are traveling for business, family, visiting friends or ordering goods that come from China, you want them overnight, so they have to be flown in also. How can you do this with the least amount of emission? We are showing that, and I think that’s a responsibility that we have and we’re taking it very seriously.

Daniel Newman: The pace and speed in which you work in the sport, whether it’s the two and a half seconds to what change tires, fuel, all the things that you do is pretty incredible. You take the cars apart, you see a major crash on qualifying and on Sunday the car’s back in the race. You take a car to the shop, Don, it takes two months to get it back these days.

Don McGuire: Yeah, especially right now.

Daniel Newman: But it has to-

Toto Wolff: But not a Mercedes workshop.

Daniel Newman: No, of course not. Of course not. This sounds like a good moment of where the ethos though really is similar. I know Qualcomm focuses on being low power, you’re focusing on technology for driver assistant for safety, of course trying to create newest PC, smartphones. Is this something that you feel is a really good reflection of a sport that believes in and a company that believes in sustainability?

Don McGuire: Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve committed to new net-zero goals just like a lot of big organizations have. And we have committed to reducing power drain. Reducing that impact on climate and the environment by 20% year over year. And the good news is we know how to do this. We know how to master performance at low power. So it’s been fun to be that yin and the yang and then obviously partnering with other organizations that share those goals. It broadens your appeal from a fan perspective as well. So I think what Toto mentioned about sustainability and moving F1, and leading by example.

And in combination with leading by example with the academy makes for a broader ecosystem of audience to come in and be part of it. We’ve leaned in with the academy with the Mercedes team from a brand perspective because we really support the goal of the academy. And so we’ve wrapped ourselves around Dorian with a big blanket. You’ll be seeing more of that a little bit of it tomorrow, sneak peek. And then we’re really excited about where the academy is headed. And so we like those aspects of the partnership. It’s beyond just the performance and the sport and the cars and Lewis and everybody else. It’s all about these other things that make it sort of a full and holistic partnership.

Daniel Newman: Well, Don, Toto, it’s been a great time having a conversation on the way out, Toto, I got one question I just have to ask because every Sunday that there is a race, I wake up early if it’s at 3:00 AM or 9:00 AM or I watch it. I’ve gotten my son into the sport, loves the sport. Which venue is your favorite after all these years? Is there a race that you go to that you’re just absolutely the most excited about, most excited track, most excited event fans? What is it and where is it?

Toto Wolff: There’s so many that provide a different experience. I love to go to Suzuka because the experience in the country, it’s all so clean, is great. The track is a driver’s track. I love to go to Spa because also the high speed corner’s there and it’s always raining and it’s cold and it’s gray. That’s how it should be in Spa. So every track has its DNA. So yeah, I’ve started to love all of the calendar actually.

Daniel Newman: Yeah.

Don McGuire: It’s been really interesting to go from race to race and really notice that they are unique. I went to Singapore for the first time this year and everyone’s like, “You got to go to Singapore, you got to go to Singapore.” And it is very unique, so it’s hard to pick one. Monza has, its unique, the Tifosi and the Italian-ness, everything is very unique as you go track to track.

Toto Wolff: Monaco, very unique.

Don McGuire: Monaco, very unique. Vegas-

Toto Wolff: Vegas unique.

Daniel Newman: We’ve got to widen that track now so we can get some more passing.

Toto Wolff: I’ve been living there for a long time and every time I drop my son in school I’m thinking, “How can we make this quicker?” So track designer there, but the problem is just very close. So we could shave off a few trees, but then the FAA is scared that we’re going too quick. Out of the tunnel we could go in another 500 meters, but you’re doing them 200 miles an hour.

Daniel Newman: Well, we’ve all come as fans to understand that the race is qualifying, in some ways at that particular track. Don, Toto, thank you both so much.

Don McGuire: Thank you for having us

Daniel Newman: And thank you everyone out there for tuning into this episode of The Six Five. I know it was a little bit unique, but we brought together technology, motorsports, and a great conversation and a great couple of guests. Subscribe, be part of our community. Join us for all of our episodes. But for this one, it’s time to say goodbye. See you all later.