Has the semiconductor industry changed over the years? It's the sort of question people ask from time to time, usually in a bar.
Well here's a story from Charlie Sporck, former CEO of National Semiconductor, in his memoir SPINOFF.
The story is told to Sporck by Phil Ferguson, a TI-er, and former Fairchild research scientist, who co-founded a Fairchild spin-off called General Microelectronics (founded 1963, sold to Philco-Ford in 1966).
"Bob Norman (a co-founder of General Microelectronics) had a meeting somewhere at a restaurant at lunch, and they were drinking like crazy, and at about 3:30 I couldn't find anybody", recounts Ferguson, "I tracked them down and got Norman on the phone and said: 'What the hell are you doing. Those people need to get back here.'"
"And Norman was drunk as a skunk and he said: 'Well I'll tell you what. We got arguing about whether a Mai Tai in the US tastes as good as a Mai Tai in Hawaii, and I've got seats for 25 people, for all of us, on the 5:40 to Honolulu, and I'm taking them all to prove that the Hawaiian Mai Tais are better than the Californians.'
Ferguson spoiled the party by sacking Norman and getting the security staff to take the company station wagons to the restaurant, load up the 25 lunchers and ship them back to HQ.
Would a modern CEO have done the same as Ferguson? Or joined in the junket to Honolulu?
I can think of modern CEOs who are capable of both options.
Maybe some things aren't that different.
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