What bad year? AMD's Hector Ruiz gets a raise

[WR]

What's weird is that Hector typically makes more money than Paul Otellini from Intel (I think one year it was on the order of double). I don't know if that makes Paul a nice guy or a Hector an overpaid, lying, cheating embezzeler, but it's interesting.

What the hell was AMD thinking, he needs to resign and fast. Dirk Meyer needs to take over, and soon.

Ruiz is paid more than Otellini because pay is commensurate with difficulty of the work and also partially counters performance of the stock.

Intel is easy to manage - it has lots of resources and money, has the overwhelming majority of the market, and has an existing culture that makes it quite competitive for a company of that size. People would kill to be its CEO.

Same isn't true for AMD. They probably gave Ruiz a raise to lessen the chances of his resigning, as they couldn't find someone better suited. Perhaps either Meyer does not (yet) want the position, or they don't have a better candidate to replace Meyer.

 

[easyg]

What's weird is that Hector typically makes more money than Paul Otellini from Intel (I think one year it was on the order of double). I don't know if that makes Paul a nice guy or a Hector an overpaid, lying, cheating embezzeler, but it's interesting.

What the hell was AMD thinking, he needs to resign and fast. Dirk Meyer needs to take over, and soon.

Ruiz is paid more than Otellini because pay is commensurate with difficulty of the work and also partially counters performance of the stock.

As with everything else about AMD this year, the timing of the announcement couldn't have been worse. Same week, AMD files with SEC Hector's 7.4% pay raise and says its going to write off some of the 3.2B in assets it has on the books for ATI. Add to that the negative press coverage from Analyst Day and the stock closing Friday at a new 12 mo. low, and it's not surprising that the pay raise is raising some eyebrows.

Earlier this year, Cramer had Ruiz on his Wall of Shame, but Cramer was pretty much the only one who was vocally calling for Ruiz's head. Now, there's practically a chorus of folks begging for Ruiz's head, heart, and nards on a platter. The market is afraid that Ruiz doesn't really have a plan (at least not a viable one) to get AMD back to profitability. The lack of real concrete news about asset light on Thursday just reinforced that belief.