Semiconductor-Savvy CEO On The Hiring Trail

Tewksbury has the old-fashioned approach to the chip industry - make a better chip.

That's an eccentric idea to those CEOs with MBAs and accountancy qualifications, who think growth comes from M&A, and profits from manipulation of  the balance sheet.

"When I tell analysts I'm going for organic growth they look at me as though I've got three heads," says Tewksbury.

So how's he going to get his organic growth?

"We target the top individuals in the industry and go out and hire them", replies Tewksbury.

He's done it before. "When I joined Maxim, they had no high speed data conversion business", recalls Tewksbury, "Gifford (Jack Gifford founder and former CEO) gave me an office and a phone, and said: 'Build me the world's best high speed data converter group'. Five years later we had the broadest portfolio of A-Ds and D-As in the industry."

How did he do it? "We asked: 'What are the best products in the industry?' And then we asked 'Who designed those products?' And then we went out and hired those guys", replies Tewksbury.

Isn't it rather difficult to identify the designers of particular products? "Not if you're tapped into the industry", responds Tewksbury.

How does he get them to switch jobs? Does he have to offer a fortune? "It's never about the money. It's always about the mission", says Tewksbury, "you've got to have some compelling mission."

I remember a similar attitude to recruitment being expressed by Dr T.J. Rodgers, a particularly semiconductor-savvy CEO,  when he was setting up Cypress Semiconductor in 1983. 

"You have to tap into the highest energy, highest quality people", Rodgers told me over breakfast in the Stanford Mall, before embarking on this remarkable description of how he went about implementing this:

"There are very specific cultures we want to create in our company", said Rodgers,  "every company does a good job in some areas, and a poor one in others. So if you want to make high-tech wafers you ask yourself: Who does it really well in the US? Intel is the answer. So our fab manager comes from Intel's most advanced fab."

"Which company sells products better than anyone else? The best in the world is very clearly AMD  Under Sanders' culture they sell product faster, for more money, than anyone else. So our vice president for marketing and sales is Lowell Turriff from AMD."

"Intel and AMD do a pretty lousy job in packaging", said Rodgers, "companies that do a good job are TI, National and Signetics. Our packaging guy is from Signetics, Fritz Beyerlein."

"Take purchasing. The most frugal company with money is national. We went to national and took the guy who started their entire purchasing department - Paul Reneau.".

"Which company has the best fabs in the world?  Mostek. We found out who built Mostek's fabs, Jeff Hannon,  and he's building our plant."

"We had to find a design team to do EPROMs. Who does the best job in EPROMs? Intel. We've got Saroj Pathak who designed Intel's 32K EPROM, and her husband Jagdish Pathak who designed Intel's 65K EPROM."

That was the gospel according to Rodgers and, if it's good enough for T.J., it ought to be good enough for the chip industry.