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Walter Jeremiah Sanders III (born September 12, 1936) is an American businessman and engineer who was a co-founder and long-time
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of the American
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...
manufacturer
Advanced Micro Devices Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
(AMD). From 1969 to 2002, Sanders served as AMD's CEO.


Early life and education

Jerry Sanders III grew up in the South Side of
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
, raised by his paternal grandparents. He was once attacked and beaten by a street gang leaving him so covered in blood that a priest was called to administer the
last rites The last rites, also known as the Commendation of the Dying, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of Christian faith, when possible, shortly before death. They may be administered to those awaiting execution, mortall ...
. He attended the
University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...
on an academic scholarship from the Pullman railroad car company. He graduated from the with a
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
degree in engineering in 1958. After graduation, Sanders worked for the
Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated a ...
. He subsequently moved to
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...
, then to
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
.


Business career


1961-1969: Fairchild Semiconductor

Jerry Sanders joined Fairchild Semiconductor in 1961 as a young engineer. At Fairchild, Sanders quickly rose from lower sales positions up to a succession of management positions in marketing, making him a likely candidate for one of the company's top vice presidencies. However, in 1968, a new management team was brought into Fairchild Semiconductor by
Sherman Fairchild Sherman Mills Fairchild (April 7, 1896 – March 28, 1971) was an American businessman and investor. He founded over 70 companies, including Fairchild Aircraft ( Fairchild Aviation Corporation), Fairchild Industries, and Fairchild Camera and Ins ...
, led by C. Lester Hogan, then vice president of Motorola Semiconductor. The staff from Motorola, also known as "Hogan's Heroes", were conservative and hence immediately clashed with Sanders' boisterous style. Sanders' flamboyant personality and style made the new management at Fairchild Semiconductor feel uneasy so they fired him. Sanders' said that, on his firing from Fairchild, "My whole life has been about treating people fairly, and I wasn't treated fairly".


1969-2004: Advanced Micro Devices

In 1969, eight engineers left Fairchild Semiconductor together to start a new company, founding
Advanced Micro Devices Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
(AMD) in
Sunnyvale Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the nort ...
,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
in May 1969. They asked Jerry Sanders to join them, and he said he would, provided he became the president of the company. Although it caused some dissension within the group, they agreed, and the company was founded with Sanders as President. Every employee at the company got stock options, an innovation at the time. Sanders gave the company a strong sales and marketing orientation, so that it was successful even though it was often behind its competitors in technology and manufacturing. Stacy Rasgo, a semiconductor analyst at Bernstein Research, called Sanders "one of the best salesmen that
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Cou ...
had ever seen". He shared the success of the company with the employees, usually coincident with sales-oriented growth targets. Sanders at AMD famously remarked that in the semiconductor industry "real men have fabs". Originally intended as a jibe against competitors, Saners' remarks have been largely disproven in the years since. From 1969 to 2009, AMD fabricated its own processors but it later sold off its foundry division as
GlobalFoundries GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF or GloFo) is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD, ...
in 2009. AMD is now fabless and outsources its fabrication to GlobalFoundries and
TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...
. He steered the company through hard times as well. In 1974, a particularly bad
recession In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
almost broke the company. Through a period of stagflation in 1979, he refused to layoff AMD employees and instead took a leaf from the Japanese rather than engaging in the same rampant layoffs that had occurred at Fairchild earlier. Instead of reducing employees, he asked them to work Saturdays to get more done and get new products out sooner. There were also good times for the company. Sanders gave each one of his employees $100 as they walked out of the door during AMD's first $1M quarter. AMD implemented a cash profit-sharing employee compensation program, where employees would regularly get profit checks of $1,000 or more. In 1976,
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
needed a second source to produce its 8085 processor for IBM PCs so it turned to AMD. In 1982, Sanders was responsible for a renegotiated licensing deal that would enable AMD to copy Intel's processor microcode to make its own x86 processors, a deal that eventually made the company the only real competitor to Intel. The open-ended legal language of the deal was used by Sanders to lead efforts for AMD to reverse-engineer and clone Intel's
8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allo ...
processor. Intel successfully countersued AMD which caused AMD's stock to collapse and nearly killed the company. In 2000, Sanders recruited
Héctor Ruiz Hector de Jesus Ruiz Cardenas (born December 25, 1945) is the chairman and CEO of Advanced Nanotechnology Solutions, Inc. and former CEO & executive chairman of semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). Ruiz is the author of ...
, at the time the president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, to serve as AMD's president and CEO, and to become heir apparent to lead the company upon Sanders' retirement. He stayed with the company as chairman after Ruiz succeeded him as CEO in 2002. Sanders stepped down as AMD chair in April 2004 after 35 years at the company.


References


External links


The Fairchild Chronicles
*
Profile of Jerry SandersAMD "Jerry Sanders" Creative Design Competition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Jerry 1936 births Living people AMD people American technology chief executives Grainger College of Engineering alumni