Raza should take a page from Nixon's playbook - I AM NOT A QUITER!
Raza denies falling out with CEO
austin360.com
AMD's former No. 2 executive
says missing sense of job
satisfaction prompted unexpected
departure
By Kirk Ladendorf
American-Statesman Staff
Published: July 21, 1999
A few days before struggling Advanced Micro
Devices Inc. reported yet another quarterly
operating loss last Wednesday, S. Atiq
Raza, the company's No. 2 executive, looked
at his job and decided he wanted out.
For the company, the timing was terrible.
Raza, the former president and chief
technology officer, had been instrumental in
building up AMD's technical prowess in its
fight against rival Intel Corp. He helped build
the Austin team that created AMD's highly
anticipated Athlon chip, produced by AMD's
4,100-employee Austin operation. And he
was the clear successor to AMD Chief
Executive Jerry Sanders.
Raza's unexpected departure rocked the
company and Wall Street, where he had
been seen as an important player in AMD's
survival. Officially, the company and Raza
would say only that he was leaving for
"personal reasons" -- fueling speculation that he and Sanders had a falling
out. Sanders has assumed Raza's responsibilities until a permanent
successor is named.
In one of his first public interviews since his departure, Raza told the
Austin American-Statesman on Tuesday that he had a "cordial"
relationship with Sanders despite some disagreements about company
strategy.
He quit his $811,000 a year job, he said, because something was missing
-- a sense of satisfaction in his work. He said he was looking for work in
the technology business that would give him more satisfaction.
"Financial considerations are secondary to me," he said in a telephone
interview from his home in Morgan Hill, Calif. "It is more doing something
for me that would make me more satisfied. Being more satisfied in my
work is what I was thinking."
Raza declined to spell out his differences with Sanders, but said he
believes that AMD must cut its operating expenses and lower the level of
sales it needs to achieve to break even.
But at least one investment analyst who follows AMD said he thinks the
rift between Sanders and Raza may be wider than portrayed by Raza and
the company, and centers on a new factory in Dresden, Germany,
designed to help augment AMD's Austin operations.
Analyst Ashok Kumar with Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray
said he has talked with executives at AMD. Kumar said Raza wanted to
sell the company's $1.9 billion new factory in Dresden, which is expected
to begin production early next year. Sanders didn't.
"I think he wanted to sell off the Dresden Fab to be profitable at a lower run
rate," Kumar said. "Atiq was pushing for change and Jerry was fighting
him."
When asked about the Dresden factory Tuesday, Raza sidestepped the
question.
"I wouldn't characterize it quite that way," he said. Sanders and he "are
not at cross-purposes in understanding that the company has to be able to
operate at lower expense levels. You always have differences of opinion in
managing a company. But I don't think that Jerry are I are at cross
purposes."
AMD officials said they had no response to Raza's remarks Tuesday.
The Dresden factory is being built to bolster AMD's production of
high-performance microprocessors, which currently is done at its Fab 25 in
Austin.
According to analyst Kumar, the German factory, which is being built with
financial assistance from the German government, gives AMD
manufacturing capacity that it probably won't need. And the added
expense of the fab will undercut AMD profits, even if Athlon is a success,
Kumar said.
Like other analysts, Kumar said AMD suffered a major loss with Raza's
departure. "He was instrumental to bringing credibility back to the
company," Kumar said. "There is absolutely no one else of his caliber in
the company."
For his part, leaving the company suddenly was the "right way," said
Raza, a native of Pakistan, who attended college in London and in
California. "The company needs not to dwell on the transition but to move
on rapidly."
Raza said he was "saddened" to receive many e-mails from AMD workers
who are unhappy and angry with his departure.
He said he wants to tell workers "I am very proud of them. I have a deep
affection for them and I wish them all success. That success will come
with executing the strategy around (AMD's forthcoming high-performance
processor) and the products that will come behind Athlon."
Although Raza said he is unsure about what his next job will be, he is
intrigued by the ongoing convergence of telecommunications and computer
technologies.
"I am hoping to have an impact on a broad scale," he said, either as a
company executive or as a venture capitalist. Raza said he may continue
to do consulting work for AMD, but only if there is no conflict of interest
involved in the next job he takes.
Analysts have said that the key to AMD's future is the success of the
Athlon processor, which will be formally unveiled in August. AMD began
shipping the high-performance chip to some customers in June.
Raza said he considers the Athlon to be an outstanding technical
success, but he acknowledged that the chip faces marketing obstacles.
Athlon is designed for high-performance business computers used by
engineers, designers, and so-called "digital content designers" -- most of
whom are customers who are new to AMD.
"Athlon will be a very successful product," Raza said, "But it is not an
automatic that you go in and replace existing products quickly." |
