Rambus (RMBS)

[Threejack]

re: What value do they add?


Hey Skeptic,

You and I agree on most things. Think Ms. Stark and Mr. Donnelly are EEs with an unusual skill; they can also manage other EEs to achieve a goal. From the Rambus site:

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Kevin Donnelly, Senior Vice President, Engineering

Kevin Donnelly, senior vice president, engineering, co-leads the development and deployment of memory interface and logic interface products. Prior to this position, he served as vice-president, logic interface division, where he led the development and deployment of logic interface products, including the Rambus family of serial link interfaces. Before joining Rambus, Donnelly held engineering positions at National Semiconductor, Sipex, and Memorex, over an eight year period. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, an MS degree in electrical engineering from San Jose State University, and has received several patents in high-speed clocking and I/O circuits.

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Sounds like Mr. Donnelly was integral to XDR and RaSer development. Delighted to give him options.

As for Ms. Stark:

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Laura Stark, Senior Vice President, Platform Solutions

Laura Stark, senior vice president, platform solutions, leads the product management and customer solutions teams for all Rambus products. She joined Rambus in 1996 as strategic accounts manager, and held the positions of strategic accounts director and vice president, alliances and infrastructure, before assuming her current job in October 2000. Prior to Rambus, she held various positions in the semiconductor products division of Motorola during a six-year tenure, including technical sales engineer for the Apple sales team and field application engineer for the Sun and SGI sales teams. Stark holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Guessing Ms. Stark plays a key role in Sony, Intel, AMD, etc relationships. Think IBM. Happy to award her options.

It's non-EE Managers who come and go after receiving obscene amounts of stock-based compensation who get my attention. Remember HR Manager Ed Larsen? Or Marketing Manager Ron May? Who can forget CFO Bob Eulau? And, did Rambus have to give Satish Rishi 40,000 shares of common stock and 220,000 stock options just to join Rambus??? This is in addition to his annual salary, cash and stock-based bonus.

http://ccbn.tenkwizard.com/filing.php?repo=tenk&ipage=4098355&doc=1&total=&attach=ON...

Then, there is the BoD. Does Rambus have to give 40,000 options to each new Director on appointment in addition to a retainer of $25,000 and 20,000 new options annually??

I'm all for paying the EE Managers like Ms. Stark and Mr. Donnelly. They herd cats, to borrow an analogy from Treowth. And, pay the EEs who invent and design, please. Just stop the pillage by senior management and the BoD.

Just my opinion.

Threejack