( ESNUG 506 Item 1 ) -------------------------------------------- [05/29/12]
From: John Cooley <jcooley=user domain=zeroskew not mom>
Subject: Users stunned that Aart de Geus may be stepping down as SNPS CEO
Last Wednesday, after 5:00 PM, right before the 3 day Memorial Day
weekend, in a business-as-usual SNPS Q2 2012 financial earning call that
nobody was listening to, Aart de Geus, CEO of Synopsys, quietly dropped
a surprize bombshell:
"Before I conclude, let me briefly comment on today's announcement
that Chi-Foon Chan has been appointed to join me as Co-CEO.
Many of you know that Chi-Foon and I have been working in this
matter for over a decade, and while this is formal recognition
of the success we've had in co-leading the company into his present
leadership position, there are no major changes in structure or
responsibilities.
I will continue as Chairman and CEO, being the main face to Wall
Street, and Chi-Foon will continue as President and Co-CEO shouldering
much of the operational responsibilities for the company. I'm
extremely pleased that we are recognizing Chi-Foon's hard work and
talent in this way. I look forward to together conceive and drive
the next phase of growth of Synopsys."
- CEO Aart de Geus, SNPS 12Q2 earning call
Keep in mind that we're in pre-DAC. I was deeply engrossed in writing up
my Cheesy Must See List. I didn't bother monitoring this call.
But two of SNPS' EDA rivals did. They emailed me:
Hi, John,
Did you see Aart announced he's stepping down?
- [ Thing 1 ]
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Hi, John,
SNPS says Chi-Foon as Co-CEO.
- [ Thing 2 ]
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
I didn't read these emails until Friday. At the time I simply wrote it off
as two stressed EDA vendors pulling a pre-DAC prank on me to blow of steam.
Then a user sent me an AP press release with the Synopsys Co-CEO news.
(Oh, wow. It's not a prank!)
I called three SNPS marcom people on that Friday. All were out for the day.
Even the "in case of emergency, call XXX at extension 12345" was gone!
I went back to working on my Cheesy Must See list and promptly forgot this.
The 3 day Memorial Day weekend happened.
On this Tuesday morning, I open my email to find:
Did you see the news? They're prepping for Aart to step down!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Aart resigning as CEO? See attached PR.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
I like Aart. I'll miss him.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
One of my coworkers said that Aart is no longer CEO? Is that
true?
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Did you hear? They're getting ready to have Chi-Foon step
into Aart's shoes. I'm not making this up.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Aart's retiring from Synopsys!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
RIM had Co-CEOs. Then the board fired them.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
I must reiterate that the official press release story says NOTHING about
Aart leaving SNPS. All it says is that Chi-Foon Chan will be moving up to
be the "Co-CEO" to Aart.
That being said, if Aart were to step down his timing would be perfect. In
his 20+ years of leading Synopsys, Inc., Aart has:
- taken SNPS from a tiny synthesis EDA start-up where Cadence
was #1 dominant player in the early 90's to now where Synopsys
is now the #1 player in synthesis, timing signoff, P&R, IP,
TCAD, SPICE. It also has good standing in RTL sim, EC, test,
extraction, and SI. In 2012 SNPS is the 800 lb gorilla in EDA.
- After failing in the SNPS-LAVA lawsuit, Aart finally crushed
his arch-rival, Rajeev Madhavan, CEO of Magma in a $500 million
takeover of Magma.
- The internal SNPS-LAVA merger is 70% done. The hard part is over.
- Aart recently locked in Primetime's STA signoff supremacy through
- Aart's lawyers attacking Extreme-DA on patents and he
eventually bought a then weakened company.
- Aart bought LAVA.
- Aart convinced the FTC to let all this go through.
It'll be another 10 years, if ever, before PrimeTime is ever
threatened again. Now for his/her required sign-off every EDA user
is required to negotiate with a SNPS salesdroid if he/she ever wants
his/her chip to fab.
Aart would be leaving on a high note; at the very top of his game.
  
And the fact that Aart spoke so much about SNPS history in his SNUG'12
keynote address plus the "Celebrating 25 years in EDA" being on the
Synopsys.com home page for months does back the theory that he might be
leaving. ("Farewell to our Fearless Visionary Leader!")
If it's true, I'll miss him. Aart's one of few remaining Big 3 EDA leaders
who can still mostly do in-the-dirt tool talk about his own EDA tools.
- John Cooley
DeepChip.com Holliston, MA
P.S. And my congrats to Chi-Foon Chan for becoming the new "Co-CEO".
He's been a part of SNPS since the early days and deserves the
recognition.
P.P.S. It's 6:03 PM on Tuesday and still not one of the 3 SNPS marcom
people have returned my Friday calls on this! :)
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