7/11/23, 12:04 PM Jerry Sanders (businessman) - Wikipedia
Jerry Sanders (businessman)
Walter Jeremiah Sanders III (born September 12,
Jerry Sanders
1936) is an American businessman and engineer who was a
co-founder and long-time CEO of the American Born Walter Jeremiah Sanders
semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices III
(AMD), serving in the position from 1969 to 2002. September 12, 1936
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Early life and education Alma mater University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign (BS)
Jerry Sanders III grew up in the South Side of Chicago, Known for Co-founder of AMD
Illinois, raised by his paternal grandparents.[1] He was once
Spouse Tawny Sanders (m. 1990)
attacked and beaten by a street gang[2] leaving him so
covered in blood[1] that a priest was called to administer the
last rites.[3] He attended the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign on an academic scholarship
from the Pullman railroad car company.[1] He graduated from there with a Bachelor of Science
degree in engineering in 1958.
After graduation, Sanders worked for the Douglas Aircraft Company. He subsequently moved to
Motorola, then to Fairchild Semiconductor.
Business career
1961–1969: Fairchild Semiconductor
Jerry Sanders joined Fairchild Semiconductor in 1961 as a young engineer.[4] 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.[2] However, in 1968,
a new management team was brought into Fairchild Semiconductor by Sherman Fairchild, 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".[2]
1969–2004: Advanced Micro Devices
In 1969, eight engineers left Fairchild Semiconductor together to start a new company, founding
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in Sunnyvale, California 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
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7/11/23, 12:04 PM Jerry Sanders (businessman) - Wikipedia
Valley had ever seen".[5] 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".[6]
Originally intended as a jibe against competitors, Sanders’s 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 in 2009.[7] AMD is now fabless and outsources its fabrication
to GlobalFoundries and TSMC.
He steered the company through hard times as well. In 1974, a particularly bad recession 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.[8] 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 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.[2][3] 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 processor.
Intel successfully countersued AMD which caused AMD's stock to collapse and nearly killed the
company.[9]
In 2000, Sanders recruited Héctor Ruiz, 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.[3] Sanders stepped down as AMD chair in April 2004 after 35 years at the
company.[10]
References
1. Wood, Paul (March–April 2004). "The Diligent Dilettante" (https://web.archive.org/web/200405
25020627/http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt0402e.html). Illinois Alumni Magazine.
Archived from the original (http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt0402e.html) on 25 May
2004. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
2. Simon, Mark (4 October 2001). "Profile / Jerry Sanders / Silicon Valley's tough guy" (http://ww
w.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/04/BU153179.DTL). San Francisco Chronicle.
Retrieved 20 December 2022.
3. Kanellos, Michael (24 April 2002). "End of era as AMD's Sanders steps aside" (https://archive.t
oday/20120710215434/http://news.cnet.com/End-of-era-as-AMDs-Sanders-steps-aside/2100-
1001_3-890695.html). CNET. Archived from the original (http://news.cnet.com/End+of+era+as
+AMDs+Sanders+steps+aside/2100-1001_3-890695.html) on 10 July 2012. Retrieved
20 December 2022.
4. Schuyten, Peter J. (25 February 1979). "The Metamorphosis of a Salesman" (https://www.nyti
mes.com/1979/02/25/archives/the-metamorphosis-of-a-salesman-sanders-is-taking-amd-beyo
nd.html). The New York Times. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
5. Tarasov, Katie (22 November 2022). "How AMD became a chip giant and leapfrogged Intel
after years of playing catch-up" (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/how-amd-became-a-chip-gi
ant-leapfrogged-intel-after-playing-catch-up.html). CNBC. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
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7/11/23, 12:04 PM Jerry Sanders (businessman) - Wikipedia
6. Sterling, Bruce (9 October 2009). "Real men have fabs" (https://www.wired.com/2008/10/real-
men-have-f/). Wired. San Francisco, CA. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
7. "Fabless future: Struggling AMD spins off factories" (https://www.technologyreview.com/2008/1
0/07/218544/fabless-future-struggling-amd-spins-off-factories/). MIT Techbology Review.
Associated Press. 7 October 2008. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
8. Skornia, Thomas A. (2004). Case Study in Realizing the American Dream: Sanders and
Advanced Micro Devices: The First Fifteen Years, 1969—1984 (https://archive.computerhistor
y.org/resources/access/text/2019/01/102721657-05-01-acc.pdf) (PDF). pp. 92–93.
OCLC 754864574 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/754864574).
9. Malone, Michael S. (10 March 2006). "Silicon Insider: Battle of the Microchip Giants" (https://ab
cnews.go.com/Business/SiliconInsider/story?id=1729454). ABC News. Retrieved
20 December 2022.
10. "Sanders retires as AMD chair" (https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/sanders-retires-as-a
md-chair/). CNET. 30 April 2004. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
External links
The Fairchild Chronicles (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2005/pr-fairchild-030905.html)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20121015014849/http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/
2005/pr-fairchild-030905.html) 15 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
Interview with Jerry Sanders at his alma mater (http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt04
02e.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20120422204135/http://www.uiaa.org/illinois/)
22 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine
"Profile of Walter "Jerry" Sanders" (https://grainger.illinois.edu/alumni/hall-of-fame/walter-sande
rs). University of Illinois Alumni Hall of Fame. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
Massive source of links and reviews regarding Jerry Sanders (https://web.archive.org/web/200
91019003906/http://www.amdboard.com/sanderspecial.html)
Profile of Jerry Sanders (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/04/BU15317
9.DTL)
AMD "Jerry Sanders" Creative Design Competition (https://web.archive.org/web/20070204150
557/http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu/)
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