Jerry Sanders (businessman)
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Walter Jeremiah Sanders III Jerry Sanders |
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| Born | September 12, 1936 |
| Spouse(s) | Tawny Sanders (1990-present) |
Walter Jeremiah Sanders III (born September 12, 1936) is an American businessman and is a co-founder and was a long-time CEO of the American semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Jerry Sanders III grew up in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, 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. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on an academic scholarship from the Pullman railroad car company. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in engineering in 1958.
After graduation he went to work for the Douglas Aircraft Company. He eventually moved to Motorola, then to Fairchild Semiconductor.
In 1968 Sherman Fairchild brought a new management team into Fairchild Semiconductor, 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.
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.
Sanders took his trademark style into his position as the CEO of AMD. He realized that the key to earning wealth was for everyone else at AMD to make a lot of money too. Every employee at the company got stock options, a huge innovation at the time.
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).
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