[1] Ruiz is the author of Slingshot: AMD’s Fight To Free An Industry From The Ruthless Grip Of Intel, "a book that memorializes his bet-the-company decision in 2005 to file an antitrust case against its much larger rival.

As a teenager, he walked across the Mexico – United States border every day to attend a high school in nearby Eagle Pass, Texas, from which he graduated as valedictorian just three years after beginning to learn English.

[3] In 2012, Ruiz—along with former First Lady Laura Bush, Charles Matthews, Melinda Perrin, Julius Glickman and Admiral William H. McRaven—was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Texas.

[4][5] Ruiz worked at Texas Instruments for six years and Motorola for 22 years, rising to become president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector before being recruited in 2000 by AMD founder Jerry Sanders to serve as AMD's president and chief operating officer, and to become heir apparent to lead the company upon Sanders' retirement.

[9] As CEO, Ruiz led AMD to "important technical accomplishments and strides in its competition against Intel," but " he was never able to stanch the company's persistent financial losses."

"[10] In February 2012, the Albany Times Union looked back at the June 2006 announcement by Ruiz and then-current New York Governor George Pataki that AMD and then its spin-off GlobalFoundries "would be building the world's most advanced 'chip fab' on the planet."

Pataki said GlobalFoundries is likely to end up spending $7 billion and hiring 2,000 employees at the plant, with 9,000 additional jobs created as a result.

[1] Bloomberg News reported in June 2011 that Ruiz and another former AMD executive, Bharath Rangarajan, had formed a new consultancy called Bull Ventures.