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{{short description|American businessman; co-founder of Advanced Micro Devices}}
{{Inappropriate tone|date=December 2007}}
{{Wikify|date=January 2012}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
{{BLP sources|date=June 2019}}
{{Infobox person
⚫
| name = Jerry Sanders
| image =
| alt =
⚫
| birth_name = Walter Jeremiah Sanders III
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1936|09|12}}
| birth_place = [[Chicago]], Illinois, U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| nationality =
| education =
| alma_mater = [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]])
| occupation =
| years_active =
| employer =
| organization =
| agent =
| known_for = Co-founder of [[Advanced Micro Devices|AMD]]
| notable_works =
| spouse = {{marriage|Tawny Sanders|1990}}
⚫
}}
⚫
'''Walter Jeremiah Sanders III''' (born September 12, 1936) is an American businessman and engineer who was a co-founder and long-time [[chief executive officer|CEO]] of the American [[semiconductor]] manufacturer [[Advanced Micro Devices]] (AMD), serving in the position from 1969 to 2002.


== Early life and education ==
:''For the Mayor of San Diego, California, see [[Jerry Sanders (politician)]].''
⚫
Jerry Sanders III grew up in the [[South Side, Chicago|South Side]] of [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]], raised by his paternal grandparents.<ref name="UIAlumniMagazine">{{cite web |last=Wood |first=Paul |date=March–April 2004 |title=The Diligent Dilettante |url=http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt0402e.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040525020627/http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt0402e.html |archive-date=May 25, 2004 |work=Illinois Alumni Magazine |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref> He was once attacked and beaten by a street gang<ref name="Simon">{{cite web |last=Simon |first=Mark |date=October 4, 2001 |title=Profile / Jerry Sanders / Silicon Valley's tough guy |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/04/BU153179.DTL |work=San Francisco Chronicle |language=en-US |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref> leaving him so covered in blood<ref name="UIAlumniMagazine"/> that a priest was called to administer the [[Anointing of the Sick|last rites]].<ref name=cnet>{{cite web |last=Kanellos |first=Michael |date=April 24, 2002 |title=End of era as AMD's Sanders steps aside |url=http://news.cnet.com/End+of+era+as+AMDs+Sanders+steps+aside/2100-1001_3-890695.html |website=CNET |language=en-US |access-date=December 20, 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120710215434/http://news.cnet.com/End-of-era-as-AMDs-Sanders-steps-aside/2100-1001_3-890695.html |archive-date=July 10, 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> He attended the [[University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign]] on an academic scholarship from the [[Pullman Company|Pullman railroad car company]].<ref name="UIAlumniMagazine"/> He graduated from there with a [[Bachelor of Science]] degree in electrical engineering in 1958.


⚫
After graduation, Sanders worked for the [[Douglas Aircraft Company]]. He subsequently moved to [[Motorola]], then to [[Fairchild Semiconductor]].
⚫
'''Walter Jeremiah Sanders III''' (born September 12, 1936) was a co-founder and a long-time CEO of the American semiconductor manufacturer [[Advanced Micro Devices]] (AMD).


== Business career ==
⚫
Jerry Sanders III grew up in the South Side of [[Chicago, Illinois]], raised by his paternal grandparents.<ref name="UIAlumniMagazine">{{cite web|url=http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt0402e.html|title=The Diligent Dilettante|publisher=Illinois Alumni Magazine|author=Paul Wood|date=March/April 2004}}</ref> He was once attacked and beaten by a street gang,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/04/BU153179.DTL|title=PROFILE- Jerry Sanders - Silicon Valley's tough guy|author=Mark Simon|publisher=[[San Francisco Chronicle]]|date=October 4, 2001}}</ref> leaving him so covered in blood<ref name="UIAlumniMagazine"/> that a priest was called to administer the [[Anointing of the Sick|last rites]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.com.com/End+of+era+as+AMDs+Sanders+steps+aside/2100-1001_3-890695.html|title=End of era as AMD's Sanders steps aside|author=Michael Kanellos |publisher=[[CNET]]|date=April 24, 2002}}</ref> but Jerry recovered. He attended the [[University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]] on an academic scholarship from the [[Pullman Company|Pullman railroad car company]].<ref name="UIAlumniMagazine"/> He graduated with his [[bachelor's degree]] in engineering in 1958.
=== 1961–1969: Fairchild Semiconductor ===
Jerry Sanders joined Fairchild Semiconductor in 1961 as a young engineer.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Schuyten |first1=Peter J. |date=February 25, 1979 |title=The Metamorphosis of a Salesman |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/25/archives/the-metamorphosis-of-a-salesman-sanders-is-taking-amd-beyond.html |website=The New York Times |language=en-US |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Simon"/> 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|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".<ref name="Simon"/>


=== 1969–2004: Advanced Micro Devices ===
⚫
After graduation he went to work for the [[Douglas Aircraft Company]]. He eventually moved to [[Motorola]], then to [[Fairchild Semiconductor]]. He became known as one of [[Fairchild Semiconductor|Fairchild]]'s best sales people in the 1960s and was famous for his style and flair.
⚫
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 Valley]] had ever seen".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tarasov |first1=Katie |date=November 22, 2022 |title=How AMD became a chip giant and leapfrogged Intel after years of playing catch-up |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/how-amd-became-a-chip-giant-leapfrogged-intel-after-playing-catch-up.html |website=CNBC |language=en-US |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref> He shared the success of the company with the employees, usually coincident with sales-oriented growth targets.
In 1968 [[Sherman Fairchild]] brought a new management team into Fairchild Semiconductor, led by [[C. Lester Hogan]], then vice president of [[Motorola|Motorola Semiconductor]]. The troops from Motorola, also known as "Hogan's Heroes", were notoriously conservative, and immediately clashed with Sanders' boisterous style.
He was one of the architects of Silicon Valley.


Sanders at AMD famously remarked that in the semiconductor industry "real men have [[Semiconductor device fabrication|fabs]]".<ref name="Tarasov">{{cite magazine |last1=Sterling |first1=Bruce |date=October 9, 2009 |title=Real men have fabs |url=https://www.wired.com/2008/10/real-men-have-f/ |location=San Francisco, CA |magazine=Wired |language=en-US |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |agency=Associated Press |date=October 7, 2008 |title=Fabless future: Struggling AMD spins off factories |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2008/10/07/218544/fabless-future-struggling-amd-spins-off-factories/ |website=MIT Technology Review |language=en-US |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref> AMD is now fabless and outsources its fabrication to GlobalFoundries and [[TSMC]].
⚫
In 1969 a group of Fairchild engineers decided to start a new company, which became [[Advanced Micro Devices]] ([[AMD]]). 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.


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 lay off AMD employees and instead took a leaf from the Japanese rather than engaging in the same rampant layoffs that had occurred at Fairchild earlier.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Skornia |first1=Thomas A. |year=2004 |title=Case Study in Realizing the American Dream: Sanders and Advanced Micro Devices: The First Fifteen Years, 1969—1984 |url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/01/102721657-05-01-acc.pdf |pages=92–93 |oclc=754864574}}</ref> 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 $1 million quarter. AMD implemented a cash profit-sharing employee compensation program, where employees would regularly get profit checks of $1,000 or more.
Sanders took his trademark style into his position as the CEO of AMD.
He remained the company's consummate salesperson, always available to come in on the really tough negotiations and close them. He loved visiting the [[Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles]] sales office on Wilshire Blvd near Hollywood and staying at the [[Beverly Hills]] [[Hilton Hotels|Hilton]]. Sanders always wanted to make money, but he realized that the key to earning wealth was for everyone else at AMD to make a lot of money too. While growing wealthy, he also lavished wealth generously on all his employees. At the end of the company's first $1 million quarter, Sanders stood by the door of the company and handed a $100 bill to every employee as they left. Every employee at the company got stock options, a huge innovation at the time.


In 1976, [[Intel]] needed a second source to produce its [[Intel 8085|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.<ref name="Simon"/><ref name=cnet/> The open-ended legal language of the deal was used by Sanders to lead efforts for AMD to reverse-engineer and clone Intel's [[Intel 8086|8086]] processor. Intel successfully countersued AMD which caused AMD's stock to collapse and nearly killed the company.<ref>{{cite web |last=Malone |first=Michael S. |date=March 10, 2006 |title=Silicon Insider: Battle of the Microchip Giants |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Business/SiliconInsider/story?id=1729454 |website=ABC News |language=en-US |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref>
Sanders gave the company a strong sales and marketing orientation, so that it was successful even though it was often a little behind its competitors in technology and manufacturing. He shared the success of the company with the employees, usually coincident with sales-oriented growth targets. One time, as a successful sales goal was met, the company held a drawing among all the employees, and an immigrant production worker in [[Sunnyvale, California]] won $1000 a month for 20 years (USD 240,000).


⚫
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 the heir apparent to lead the company upon Sanders' retirement. He stayed with the company as chairman after Ruiz succeeded him as CEO in 2002.<ref name="cnet"/> Sanders stepped down as AMD chair in April 2004 after 35 years at the company.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sanders retires as AMD chair |url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/sanders-retires-as-amd-chair/ |website=CNET |language=en-US |date=April 30, 2004 |access-date=December 20, 2022}}</ref>
He drove the company through hard times as well. In 1974, a particularly bad [[recession]] almost broke the company, but a brilliant sales deal worked out by Sanders with one of the company's distributors{{Citation needed|date=August 2007}} saved the company. Through many difficult recessions he refused to lay off employees, a reaction to the rampant layoffs that had occurred at Fairchild earlier. Instead of cutting employees, he asked them to work Saturdays to get more done and get new products out sooner.


⚫
== References ==
In 1982, he was responsible for a licensing deal with Intel that made AMD a second source to [[IBM]] for the [[Intel]] [[Microprocessor]] series, a deal that eventually made the company the only real competitor to Intel.

⚫
In 2000, Sanders recruited [[Héctor Ruiz]], at the time the president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, to serve as AMD's president and chief operating officer, and to become heir apparent to lead the company upon Sanders' retirement. Ruiz succeeded Sanders in the CEO's seat in 2002.

Jerry Sanders has four children (three from his first marriage and one from his second), three who are now adults and one who is currently living with him and his wife, Tawny, and his daughter Paris.

Sanders created Advanced Micro Devices; his personality was the company's personality &mdash; colorful, brash,and extremely innovative.{{Citation needed|date=March 2008}}

His maxim was: "people first, products and profit will follow!" This was given as a printout for each AMD worker who started a job at AMD in Dresden/Germany until Jerry Sanders retirement.

⚫
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Reflist}}


==External links==
== External links ==
*[http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2005/pr-fairchild-030905.html The Fairchild Chronicles]
*[http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2005/pr-fairchild-030905.html The Fairchild Chronicles] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015014849/http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2005/pr-fairchild-030905.html |date=15 October 2012 }}
*[http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt0402e.html Interview with Jerry Sanders at his alma mater]
*[http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/utxt0402e.html Interview with Jerry Sanders at his alma mater] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120422204135/http://www.uiaa.org/illinois/ |date=22 April 2012 }}
* {{Cite web |title=Profile of Walter "Jerry" Sanders |url=https://grainger.illinois.edu/alumni/hall-of-fame/walter-sanders |website=University of Illinois Alumni Hall of Fame |language=en-US |access-date=November 23, 2022}}
*[http://www.amdboard.com/sanderspecial.html Massive source of links and reviews regarding Jerry Sanders]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20091019003906/http://www.amdboard.com/sanderspecial.html Massive source of links and reviews regarding Jerry Sanders]
*[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/04/BU153179.DTL Profile of Jerry Sanders]
*[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/04/BU153179.DTL Profile of Jerry Sanders]
*[http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu AMD "Jerry Sanders" Creative Design Competition]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070204150557/http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu/ AMD "Jerry Sanders" Creative Design Competition]

* http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DigitalMedia/30724C_Jerry_Sanders_E.jpg
{{S-start}}
{{s-bus}}
{{S-bef |before=Company founded}}
{{S-ttl |title=[[Chief executive officer|CEO]], [[AMD]] |years=1969–2002<br />}}
{{S-aft |after=[[Hector Ruiz]]}}
{{s-end}}


{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
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| NAME = Sanders, Jerry
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
| DATE OF BIRTH = September 12, 1936
| PLACE OF BIRTH =
| DATE OF DEATH =
| PLACE OF DEATH =
⚫
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Jerry}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Jerry}}
[[Category:1936 births]]
[[Category:1936 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Advanced Micro Devices people]]
[[Category:AMD people]]
[[Category:American chief executives]]
[[Category:American technology chief executives]]
[[Category:American people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:Grainger College of Engineering alumni]]
[[Category:University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign alumni]]

[[ca:Jerry Sanders]]
[[de:Jerry Sanders III]]
⚫
[[fr:Walter Jeremiah Sanders III]]
[[id:Jerry Sanders]]
[[ja:ジェリー・サンダース]]
[[ru:Сандерс, Джерри (бизнесмен)]]

Latest revision as of 06:52, 8 January 2025

Jerry Sanders
Born
Walter Jeremiah Sanders III

(1936-09-12) September 12, 1936 (age 88)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (BS)
Known forCo-founder of AMD
Spouse
Tawny Sanders
​
(m. 1990)​

Walter Jeremiah Sanders III (born September 12, 1936) is an American businessman and engineer who was a co-founder and long-time CEO of the American semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), serving in the position from 1969 to 2002.

Early life and education

[edit]

Jerry Sanders III grew up in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, raised by his paternal grandparents.[1] He was once 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 electrical engineering in 1958.

After graduation, Sanders worked for the Douglas Aircraft Company. He subsequently moved to Motorola, then to Fairchild Semiconductor.

Business career

[edit]

1961–1969: Fairchild Semiconductor

[edit]

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

[edit]

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 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 lay off 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 $1 million 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 the 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

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c Wood, Paul (March–April 2004). "The Diligent Dilettante". Illinois Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on 25 May 2004. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d Simon, Mark (4 October 2001). "Profile / Jerry Sanders / Silicon Valley's tough guy". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Kanellos, Michael (24 April 2002). "End of era as AMD's Sanders steps aside". CNET. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  4. ^ Schuyten, Peter J. (25 February 1979). "The Metamorphosis of a Salesman". 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". CNBC. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  6. ^ Sterling, Bruce (9 October 2009). "Real men have fabs". Wired. San Francisco, CA. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  7. ^ "Fabless future: Struggling AMD spins off factories". MIT Technology 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 (PDF). pp. 92–93. OCLC 754864574.
  9. ^ Malone, Michael S. (10 March 2006). "Silicon Insider: Battle of the Microchip Giants". ABC News. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  10. ^ "Sanders retires as AMD chair". CNET. 30 April 2004. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
[edit]
Business positions
Preceded by
Company founded
 CEO, AMD
1969–2002
 Succeeded by
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