AMD and the difference between men and women
Last week, I raised the question of what role gender played in the quick, harsh firing of VMware founder and CEO Diane Greene. I felt the treatment was unusually rough, particularly for a place like Silicon Valley where even the biggest screw-ups never get fired, they just get promoted out of the company, given a nice pat on the back, and a heavy dose of corporate-pr spin to help soothe their bruised egos.
Kind of like AMD’s now-former CEO Hector Ruiz.
On Thursday, the company announced it was promoting Ruiz to be executive chairman, and it tried to claim this was part of some two-year plan. Uh-huh.
Compared to Greene, Ruiz’s mistakes were far more epic. Just a couple of years ago, AMD seemed to have rival Intel on the run. Perhaps no Silicon Valley has fallen as hard or as fast. Now analysts are pondering whether the company should be split up in some fashion.
So what did Ruiz do wrong? Here’s a few nuggets from Mercury News reporter Pete Carey’s story:
Its problems continued Thursday, as the company also reported earnings. The second-quarter net loss expanded to $1.19 billion, or $1.96 a share, from $600 million, or $1.09 a share, a year earlier, the Sunnyvale company said. Sales climbed 3.1 percent to $1.35 billion, missing analysts’ estimates.
AMD has reported seven consecutive net losses.
AMD paid $5.6 billion to acquire ATI Technologies, a graphics-chip maker, in 2006. AMD says the acquisition is now worth half that amount.
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But instead of being shown the door, Ruiz is getting a nice, soft landing. No details yet on his new pay package, but I’m betting it’ll still be generous.
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Nicely said, Chris.
I wondered, too, about HP Chair Patricia Dunn. I’m not saying that the probe was right, but I think she was treated very differently than a male would have been.
Jolie:
Welcome and thanks for posting here! I’m thinking about spinning this out into a print column next week. I think I’m still fundamentally shocked that there are no female CEOs of public companies in Silicon Valley.