Silicon Valley apparently has a problem with anti-Muslim and racial
discrimination. That's what a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San
Jose, California by Lebanese-born Muslim Walid Maghribi. Mr. Maghribi
claims that while president of chipmaking powerhouse and Intel foe AMD, he
was treated poorly after September 11th and was forced out of the company in
March due to the hostile work environment.
I find this whole thing a little hard to believe, especially since the
Muslim in question is one of AMD's highest-paid executives (a 16-year
veteran of the company with $1.5 million in salary and bonuses alone last
year) who quit in March 2002. My question was: If the discrimination at AMD
was so bad for this guy, why stick it out for six months? Was he the only
Muslim in the company? Have any other Muslims at AMD complained about the
terrible anti-Muslim sentiment found at AMD HQ in sunny California?
Maybe this guy stepped down because he knew that the flash memory division
(and the flash memory industry as a whole) was tanking and didn't want to
get fired? This is certainly a possibility since AMD big boss Jerry Sanders
told financial analysts and press last October that "The outlook for flash
memory going into 2002 remains uncertain, and pricing pressures on flash
memory products are expected to remain intense. We currently expect that
these conditions will delay our return to profitability until the second
quarter of 2002." It was around this time that Walid Maghribi claims to
have been "outed" as a Muslim and Arab to the AMD inner circle of top execs.
Yes, it wasn't the poor performance of the AMD flash memory division; it was
the Anglo-and-Latino faces on the board that made Maghribi feel unwanted.
Does Maghribi and his useless ambulance-chasing lawyers expect us to believe
that incoming AMD CEO Hector Ruiz stood up in a board meeting, pointed at
Maghribi and shouted "Holy cow, Wally! You're one of those Muslim Arabs?
Por Dios, no wonder the flash memory sales have taken such a dive Ñ you're
trying to sabotage our business just like all those terrorist people in the
Middle East!"
A fun fact to know is that aside from the "Athlon" and "Duron"
microprocessors they make for personal computers, flash memory (chips found
in cell phones and other little electronic devices that are being replaced
by newer, more reliable chip technologies) is AMD's second-largest market,
accounting for 32 percent of their revenue at that time in 2001. Hey, the
flash memory business has been on the decline for at least a year as the
communications market's growth has halted. AMD's memory group saw revenue
fall seven percent in the third quarter 2001 and that was on top of the
similar percentage shortfall the previous quarter.
Let's see if this scenario plays out: The executive in charge of the
failing business component sees the writing on the wall and decides to get
out, when it dawns on him that it was the entire industry and not just one
business component failing (i.e. he can't get a job at Lucent, Motorola,
Toshiba or anyone else making flash memory chips), he cries "discrimination"
in the hopes of a fat monetary settlement.
Well, it is obvious that AMD was discriminating: They can discriminate
profitable ventures from the money-losing ones. Discrimination, especially
in this sense, is not always a bad thing. My prediction is that as long as
the California judge in this case is not from Marin County, AMD will fight
and win this case.
Good luck, AMD. You're gonna need it.
Email me with your views.
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