Many people originally got into the semiconductor industry because the first semiconductor guy they saw was a well-dressed guy in a flashy car. Jerry Sanders III, Founding CEO of AMD, Dick Skipworth, Founding CEO of Memec, and Sir Robin Saxby, Founding CEO of ARM, were no exceptions
Jerry Sanders, working at the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1958, remembers a Motorola semiconductor sales guy coming to call.
"He had beautiful clothes," recalls Sanders, "He was well groomed. He drove a new car." He also took Sanders out for an extremly good lunch.
Shortly afterwards Sanders applied for a sales engineer's job at Motorola Semiconductors.
Skipworth's first employer was AEI (Associated Electrical Engineering) - later part of GEC.
"We used to get frequent visits from a number of semiconductor sales people, because
a number of our research projects could have turned into products requiring very high volumes of semiconductors", remembers Skipworth, "one of them, David Kremer from Transitron, took me out to lunch and said: "'We're looking for technical sales people'."
"Now at the time I had a 1938 Morris 8, and Kremer had a great big flashy Ford Consul," says Skipworth, "so I said: 'Do I get a car like yours?' and he said: 'Not quite like mine, but you will get a car'. I said: 'I'm interested'. So I got into the semiconductor industry for all the wrong reasons."
Saxby worked for Rank Bush Murphy between 1968 and 1972 designing TV chips and gave a talk to the Royal Television Society at which a number of Motorola people were present.
They offered him a job which Saxby declined.
Later Saxby joined Pye.
All the time Motorola was keeping tabs on him.
"They kept entertaining me and inviting me to parties," recalls Saxby.
One day, a Motorola executive asked him: 'What colour do you want your Cortina 2000 GXL?'
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Interesting to learn how industry luminaries began their careers, I wonder what the reaosns for entering the industry would be now ??
This is so true. I left the defence industry in the nineties and joined Memec as an FAE. Without question the car was the biggest motivation to make the move.
Yes indeed, Nigel, it's not as glamorous as it was.