( ESNUG 595 Item 3 ) ------------------------------------------------------- [12/08/23]
Subject: 48 past and present Synopsys employees on Sassine as SNPS' new CEO (part 2)
BY THE NUMBERS ... here's how the 48 total (current plus past) Synopsys employees
rated this news of Sassine becoming the CEO.
What's misleading here is these total numbers contain past SNPS employees -- folks
who will tend to skew more anti-SNPS than pro-SNPS. To wit:
Notice that big red 37% THUMBS DOWN vote. Past employees can sometimes be bitter.
This is the part of this report on Sassine and his Synopsys where a good number of
comments are the grumpy negative ones (from mostly former SNPS employees.)
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But what's cruicial for Sassine here is what his current SNPS employees think of him.
That's where it's great news for Sassine. The current SNPS employees give Sassine a
happy 84% THUMBS UP and 15% NEUTRAL and 1% THUMBS DOWN rating -- which is a pretty
damn good rating for an incoming new SNPS CEO. That is, this is the current SNPS
employees agreeing with how Aart choose -- and then groomed -- Sassine to become king.
Go back to ESNUG 595 #2 to see the bulk of those happy current SNPS employee comments.
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Definite THUMBS DOWN.
Double THUMBS DOWN if I can.
Sassine was the reason why I got laid off after I gave Synopsys some
excellent years of my professional career.
While I wish my former co-workers there well, I do not wish him well.
- [ A former SNPS employee ]
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THUMBS DOWN.
I don't trust a Synopsys without Antun, Chi-Foon, nor Aart.
- [ A former SNPS employee ]
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Thumbs Down
In the valley most tech companies slowly die when their founders leave.
- [ A former SNPS employee ]
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NEUTRAL
They have been grooming Sassine to be CEO for a while, having him work
in different responsibilities, so he's not a quick knee-jerk decision.
My concern is that Sassine is not the technical person that Aart is,
he comes from the sales side.
Personally, I think Synopsys made an irreparably irreversable mistake when
they let Anirudh Devgan leave and not provide him a suitable position for
him to stay after the Magma acquisition.
While at Magma, Anirudh led the team that did what many thought was impossible;
he parallelized SPICE circuit simulation. (I remember pitching the product to
a former manager and he told me "that's impossible you can't do that". I told
him:
"I understand what you are saying. I wrote my own SPICE simulator in
graduate school. I understand the single
Ax=b
matrix issues, but Anirudh's team actually has parallelized the circuit
simulator and it works".
I think Anirudh would have made a good CEO at Synopsys, but he instead
found a home at Cadence that Synopsys must now deal with...
- [ A former SNPS employee ]
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Immediate THUMBS UP to long term NEUTRAL.
- You couldn't really expect Aart to keep going much longer.
After almost 40 years at the helm of Synopsys, at almost
70 years of age, having been as successful as he has, it's
normal to want to retire
- Sassine has been groomed for the role for a number of years.
He's been at Synopsys for ~25 years, so good for continuity.
- Continuity at the moment sounds good, notwithstanding all the
rubbish that Synopsys might be doing/generating/etc, as we
must be doing something good if our share price (just hit
$500 last week) is anything to go by (underpinned by
revenue/profit/etc)
Ask me again in 1 year's time; you might get a different answer.
- [ A former SNPS employee ]
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I worked at SNPS when Sassine took over the West Coast SNPS Sales and then
he eventually took over as SVP of SNPS Sales. [2007 to 2016]
In that time Sassine got the Broadcom, Apple, and Nvidea run rates to grow 2X.
Intel went from $70 million (2007) to $320 million (2016).
As a salesman, he's amazing.
As CEO, he could be amazing. Or a flop.
I've been away so long I don't know enough to know. NEUTRAL
- [ A former SNPS employee ]
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THUMBS UP
Sassine impressed me back when he was in SNPS Sales for Intel. Most salesmen are
not very interested in EDA technology. But Sassine's approach was different. He
really cares about the high value problem. He hired guys in his sales team with
strong tech backgrounds, so that he and his team could more deeply understand
Intel's problems; and then communicate with SNPS R&D how to build the solution.
He won Intel using that approach, growing it from there.
My point here is Sassine understands how to approach a new role. His transition
from sales to GM running R&D was really smooth. His transitions from GM to COO
and then president & COO were also really smooth.
We really appreciate Aart's leadership for the past 37 years.
Sassine is the perfect successor for Aart -- it was the right decision so we all
respect Aart for it. I cannot think of a better person to drive Synopsys for the
next 10 or 20 years than Sassine.
- [ A current SNPS employee ]
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I have reported to Sassine, either directly or skip level, from when he was
GM of the Design Group through his current role as President and incoming CEO.
I was an R&D leader when Sassine first started running the DG business unit
after having run SNPS Sales, and my initial question was:
"How will Sassine do it?"
I was impressed right away by his deep understanding of customers and a clear
priority for technology innovation. He drives this by supporting his leaders, and
then participating directly in the brainstorming meetings -- where he will bring
different dimensions covering customers, business, and technology.
Any time we had a solid proposal in front of Sassine for R&D innovation, he not
only supported and encouraged it -- he also held us accountable.
Sassine drove IC Compiler II to Fusion Compiler, which was a big pivot point.
He also led turning around our partnership with the major foundries.
The Fusion Compiler rollout (replacing ICC II) happened in late 2018. After that,
Fusion Compiler was adopted at the fastest rate ever seen for a digital PnR tool
in the industry. This came out of Sassine's strategy from the day he first
started running the Design Group business unit in December 2016.
I absolutely give a thumbs up to Sassine as the new CEO of Synopsys.
- [ A current SNPS employee ]
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I give a thumbs up to Sassine as CEO.
It was not a surprise for anyone, given the leadership that Sassine already
showed us.
Before Sassine came in to be co-GM of digital implementation with Diedre,
we were having challenges. We had rolled out IC Compiler II -- but it was
not compatible with the IC Compiler I database.
When Sassine became GM, I noticed very quickly how capable he was. He truly
listened to customers, understood their problems with ICC II exactly, and
then drove SNPS R&D in the right direction to fix it -- all while coming up
with the Fusion Compiler concept.
Before Fusion Compiler, ICC II and our other sign-off products (PrimeTime and
Star-RC) all worked independently as point tools; while what customers wanted
was a single unified solution. Sassine had SNPS R&D combine all the digital
products into one development environment.
Fusion Compiler was not only Sassine's vision, he was the driving force for it;
he also brought in Shankar, who had the right talent to manage it.
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I had the chance to travel with Sassine and saw how he interacted with the
customer. He really listened to them to understand the high value problem they
are struggling with. He took down action items, then came back and worked with
SNPS R&D trying to deliver the solution.
For example, with circuit simulation, we had three different SPICEs, all from
acquisitions, Nassda, Epic, and Magma, so you can imagine how complicated it
was to have a unified marketing strategy.
At the customers' request, Sassine merged the 3 SNPS groups into one single R&D
organization, to put together one unified, simplified SPICE offering -- PrimeSim.
- [ A current SNPS employee ]
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Yes, Aart definitely made the right choice. THUMBS UP.
Now is a very good time to make the CEO transition as we are doing so from a
position of strength, after an extremely successful FY23 so far.
Once Sassine transitioned from his role in SNPS Sales to running a business unit,
he made some tremendous changes. You can see that Aart brought him in as a kind
of "change agent" -- to bring in new ideas and reinvigorate the organization.
As the DG GM, Sassine took Synopsys' synthesis and combined it with our PnR and
sign-off to create Fusion Compiler. Because of this, Fusion Compiler has better
convergence, correlation with sign-off and superior PPA than when we ran those
with out point tool steps. This is especially pronounced in the smaller nodes.
As COO, Sassine shook up a lot of the old silos for a more unified corporate
approach. Aart has always advocated boundary-less behavior and the changes that
Sassine's drove have been a big contributor to Synopsys recent success.
Sassine was also the one who brought the idea of AI into Synopsys in 2017.
He drove what is now DSO.ai. DSO.ai directs Fusion Compiler in the right
trajectory for the customer to get their targeted PPA results.
Beyond PnR, Synopsys also has AI for our verification, test, and analog products.
Sassine is Aart's heir apparent. Absolutely this was going to happen.
The only unknown was the matter of when.
- [ A current SNPS employee ]
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THUMBS UP
He was the clear candidate for the SNPS CEO position; there was no question about
Sassine being the right person for the job.
BTW -- it's not something that just happened overnight. It started when Sassine
was brought over to run the Design Group business unit in 2016 -- both ICC1 and
ICC2 were struggling in multiple areas back then.
Sassine brought this whole concept of:
"No matter what you do and what you know, try to do more, try to do better."
He focuses on how we innovate, how we invest in the future. His attitude is to not
keep things the way they are, but to challenge everything and try to do better,
whether it's technology, or how we work with customers.
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The first thing Sassine did as the GM of the SNPS Design Group was to bring in the
concept of "fusion". (Not "fusion" to mimic the Blast Fusion tool we got from
Magma -- but the idea of merging two or three things into one.) We had multiple
teams working on similar technologies that was duplicated multiple times within
different organizations. Our STA and extraction and PnR tools' internal analysis
were each based on 6 different engines, and 4 different databases!
His fusion idea was to basically have one single engine (and one single database)
that serves everyone. It tremendously helped our tools internally with sharing.
And our users love its far tighter correlation.
This "fusion" is key success for our products. After Sassine had his DG clean up
the immediate problems with ICC1/ICC2, two years later we launched Fusion Compiler
with synthesis/PnR/STA/extraction all on one joint engine and one database.
From there, the DG BU's sales flourished.
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Sassine has a unique way of motivating people to explore new things. He will bring
people together and enable them. He has a way of unleashing people by inspiring
them and motivating them -- and then letting them take action on their own. He
can do it in a meeting or one-on-one. He has an amazing sense of the direction
needed, and which areas SNPS should explore.
He's also very practical about execution and operations and holding efficient
reviews. His belief is:
"If you cannot measure, you cannot make decisions."
Sassine does not fear change. If things are not going the right way, he'll change
things as often as needed to get the result -- whether it's changing the leadership,
the process, or the organization.
He stresses working across the BUs to best solve customer problems.
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The big cultural change Sassine brought to SNPS was to instill strategic thinking
even at the lowest levels of the company. We now all step back and think about our
strategy before we start talking about a plan, or executing it.
You can see the difference -- people have changed their language and their approach.
Our revenue and margins speak for themselves there. Synopsys hitting $5 billion was
a huge milestone under his leadership.
Sassine is a good leader, and he does it with a lot of laughter. He is always
energetic and positive, with the kind of magic that fuels and motivates people.
He connects with people -- not just executives and customers.
- [ A current SNPS employee ]
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NEUTRAL
First I'm thrilled for Aart as he gets to finally take a break yet still has a
role as Executive Chairman. Aart had a very successful long run and is probably
the most successful of any EDA CEO overall. His 37 year tenure was marked with
very few controversies and steady growth.
As far as Sassine goes, he's a safe, conservative play.
The good news is that Sassine has grown up within Synopsys and held a variety
of roles. Since he was an application engineer he knows what happens in the
trenches. He has been groomed and this is an orderly transition and I'm sure
he has received a lot of coaching and education to prepare for this role.
It's a good move by Synopsys to grow talent from within, so kudos for that.
My one beef with Sassine is that he comes more from the Sales side and is not
a deep technologist. So the big question is whether Sassine can keep the
strategic focus on new technologies in Synopsys? Can he retain and attract
technology leaders?
Shankar Krishnamoorthy and Ravi Subramanian are there. And SNPS has mgmt
depth in IP with Joachim Kunkel; so at least in the short term the momentum will
continue.
If you look at the executive team it is mostly sales, finance, legal. Synopsys
is now a holding company where R&D is under emphasized. It can continue to grow
and diversify through M&A which has been a golden road over the past decade.
I would expect some of the remaining old time execs such as Deirdre Hanford and
Joachim Kunkel to retire; but I assume they have competent lieutenants to step
up to replace themselves as GMs.
You know the old adage, "if it's ain't broke then don't fix it"?
Expect Sassine to be a continuation of Aart style leadership.
No bold moves, but steady modest growth. NEUTRAL.
- [ A former SNPS employee ]
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Related Articles
309 hands-on EDA users speak about Sassine becoming SNPS' new CEO
48 past/present SNPS employees on Sassine as SNPS' new CEO (part 1)
48 past/present SNPS employees on Sassine as SNPS' new CEO (part 2)
48 past/present SNPS employees on Sassine as SNPS' new CEO (part 3)
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