The Spirit of Amd: The Legend of Advanced Micro Devices

For a leading-edge, high-technology company, Advanced Micro Devices stated purpose is deceptively simple: We empower people everywhere to lead more productive lives.

A global supplier of integrated circuits for the personal and networked computer and semiconductor industries, AMD is anything but simple. Nevertheless, people matter at AMD. For almost 30 years, AMD has led the industry in establishing incentives and policies that have made it a leader within an often harsh competitive environment.

From the beginning, the companys chief founder, Chairman and CEO Jerry Sanders, was determined to build an organization that embodied the ideals in which he believed and fought for his entire life: that employees are at the core of success; rewarding merit brings out the best in people; and that loyalty is earned through fair treatment.

Like many of the pioneers of Silicon Valley, Sanders worked at Fairchild Semiconductor, where he excelled in the freewheeling environment. But a new management came into place that didnt tolerate dissent and Sanders soon left the company.

In 1969, while pondering his next move at a rented beach house in Malibu, he was asked by other Fairchild expatriates to lead a new semiconductor venture. Here was his chance to put ideas into action. Recalling his own experiences when hard work and accomplishments went unnoticed, Sanders established one of the first bonus incentive systems in the semiconductor industry. When AMD prospered, its employees prospered with it.

By 1998, AMD had become the fifth-largest U.S. merchant-supplier of integrated circuits, with 12,000 employees worldwide and revenues of more than $2.4 billion.