View source for Jerry Sanders (businessman)

{{short description|American businessman; co-founder of Advanced Micro Devices}}
{{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          = 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 ==
Jerry Sanders III grew up in the [[South Side, Chicago|South Side]] of [[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]].

== Business career ==
=== 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 ===
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 Rasgon, 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.

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]].

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.

By 1979, [[Intel]] needed a second source to produce its [[Intel 8088|8088]] 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>

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>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
*[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] {{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}}
*[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]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070204150557/http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu/ AMD "Jerry Sanders" Creative Design Competition]

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{{S-bef |before=Company founded}}
{{S-ttl |title=[[Chief executive officer|CEO]], [[AMD]] |years=1969–2002}}
{{S-aft |after=[[Hector Ruiz]]}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Jerry}}
[[Category:1936 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:AMD people]]
[[Category:American chief executives in technology]]
[[Category:Grainger College of Engineering alumni]]
[[Category:Fairchild Semiconductor people]]