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Trying to recapture a little of that glory In the past few years, Silicon Graphics has traveled back to the age of the dinosaurs, leapt forward to a time when robots rule the earth - and plummeted from its lofty rep as one of the high-tech industry's hippest and hottest companies. The company whose technology brought you Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 has struggled in the last three years, a dark period that has led to large layoffs and the ouster of the company's longtime CEO at the end of 1997. In order to return the company to form, in January 1998 SGI hired Richard Belluzzo as its new CEO. Belluzzo comes with a sterling reputation from his days as head of Hewlett-Packard's computer business. Just two months after taking over he announced a completely new strategy. By mid-1999, Belluzzo's radical restructuring began to pay dividends. In August, SGI announced that it would turn a profit in the second quarter of the fiscal year, the company's first quarter in the black in two year. Unexpectedly, however, around the same time, Belluzzo jumped ship to Microsoft, where he was named vice president of the consumer and commerce group. At Redmond, he will head up Bill Gates's Internet operations. SGI immediately named board member Robert Bishop to take over the reins as CEO. Rich tradition Silicon Graphics, or SGI, was founded in 1982 by former Stanford University computer science professor James Clark (who later left to help found Netscape and Healtheon). Clark and six students came up with new ways to build a cheap 3-D graphics computer, and eventually, a 3-D workstation, which was first marketed in 1984 for $75,000. Their key was to create separate chips and circuits for the graphics that take the burden off a computer's central microprocessor, thus speeding the creation of 3-D models. Previous to the innovation, most workstations could only create 3-D "wireframe" models (outlines that resemble skeletons). Hollywood and advertising agencies soon caught on. Thus was born the SGI era in special effects, one that has made possible the effects in such films such as The Mask and Twister, as well as engaging commercials starring morphing faces and dancing crackers. SGI rode its graphics-capable microprocessor to market dominance. Artists, researchers, and engineers were thrilled to bring intensely cool graphics to their desktops. In 1993, when President Clinton visited the company's headquarters to witness a virtual tour of South Central L.A., he declared that the country needed more companies like SGI. Hard times But all high-tech fairytales, it seems, must come to an end. In the past several years, a combination of strategic mistakes and operations snafus has pushed SGI to the brink of a collapse. Most often cited are fumbles related to delivery of new products. The company hit its lowest point (so far) in late 1997, when SGI stock lost a third of its value in one day, after company officials warned that earnings and sales would fall far short of expectations. Then-CEO Ed McCracken, who had led the company since 1984, was forced out by the board of directors, and the company laid off nearly 10 percent of its workforce. As of 1998, SGI stock was worth only about one third of its 1995 value. Making moves SGI's chip-making subsidiary MIPS Technology Inc. went public in 1998, which provided a considerable economic boost. The company hopes to further the trend through an alliance with Wintel. In January 1999, it launched a new line of workstations based on Intel's Pentium II chip and Windows NT software. Used for complex tasks like 3-D modeling and animation, the new machines are 50 percent cheaper than SGI's home-grown offerings, which use MIPS microprocessors and Unix operating systems. The company cuts costs with a Dell-inspired business model - the workstations are assembled by an outside contractor that builds to order. The company began its recruiting campaign to sell the new workstations by selecting pcOrder.com in April 1999 as its primary service and technology provider. SGI expects more customer business and interaction due to pcOrder.com's technology. In May 1999, SGI announced support for Intel's Pentium III processor. Forging ahead Silicon Graphics further hopes to increase its graphics technology and salvage its dwindling business by developing Fahrenheit, software intended to alleviate the now painstaking process of graphics programming. SGI is teaming up with Microsoft Corp. to develop this software which some believe may be more beneficial to Microsoft than SGI. If successful, the new software will redefine the graphics industry by allowing the creation of complex 3-D graphics using only a few key commands. SGI's supercomputers have also been chosen to develop simulation systems for Ford Motor Company and NASA. The computers allow Ford to monitor vehicle crash simulations and NASA to monitor its planes through visual airport simulations, allowing both companies to make faster adjustments concerning safety when necessary. Time to unload Cray In March 2000 the company announced it was selling the remains of Cray Research to Tera Computer for less than $100 million. It was a major admission of failure for SGI, who had picked up the firm in 1996 for $767 million. In what was perhaps one of SGI's biggest blunders, it had sold Cray's struggling Sparc- processor-based CS6400 server business to Sun Microsystems in 1996 for $21 million, only to see Sun sell $1.5 billion of the servers in the first 18 months. Working for Uncle Sam In April 2000 Silicon Graphics announced it was expanding its 400-employee government unit to include marketing, support, and professional services, in addition to the existing sales force. Mostly thanks to various strategic partnerships with companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, the government has become a major SGI client, accounting for more than 20 percent of the company's 1999 revenue.
SGI maintains exhaustive career web pages at www.sgi.com which allow job seekers to search for open positions, submit resumes, and check the company's recruiting schedule at colleges. The site even provides links to a web site that provides figures on the cost of living in different cities, and links to web sites for various diversity organizations of interest to minority candidates. Unfortunately, despite SGI's helpful services, there may be precious few jobs open at the company. The company's financial difficulties have caused extensive layoffs in the last year. On the upside, other employees say that SGI takes the long view when considering hiring. "Since things change so quickly, it's often more important to find people who are smart enough to learn new things and get things done in a fast-moving environment than it is to get someone who has done the exact job before," says one. "While we always want to fill positions quickly, we'll wait if we have to. Conversely, sometimes we'll get connected with someone and be able to hire them, even though there's not a currently open position, but because they're just the right kind of person, and our upper management will help figure out how to make things happen." In other words, if the company really wants you, it will make the effort to get you. While some groups reportedly "require academic presentations and/or a tough grilling," interviewers at SGI are adamant that "fit" bears importance equal to technical ability. "[There is] one thing that we do here that may be unusual - we hire only people that you wouldn't mind sharing an office with," one interviewer says. "There are plenty of smart people, so get the smart people that have the same type of personality as your group." Says another, "There's a lot of emphasis on selecting people who will fit into the culture in the company."
Happy frenzy Like many other high-tech companies, SGI is described by its employees as having a company culture that mixes relaxation and high energy, or, as one insider put it, "laid-back frenzy." "Externally, things look relaxed: many if not most people are dressed casually, most people don't have to be in the office during specific business hours," that employee reports. "Internally, though, it's usually quite hectic schedules are as tight as they can possibly be." According to another employee, "It's a very casual culture, there is no dress code, and everyone can talk to everyone else. There's an open door policy which people take seriously." At the same time, that employee, a longtime worker at SGI, says, "it can be a pretty intense working environment in spite of all that. Things happen pretty quickly in Silicon Valley, and there's a fast workpace, lots of things going on." Sabbatical! There is certainly a laid-back element to SGI. Dress at the company is ruled by the belief that "if you are comfortable, then you work more efficiently." "Salespeople wear suits, most everyone else wears casual clothes, all the way down to jeans and T-shirts most days," says an insider at SGI's headquarters. "There's no dress code," says another worker in Mountain View. Also, reports one longtime employee currently stationed in Europe: "the work hours are very flexible, and we have many telecommuters." According to a manager at headquarters, "one of my employees comes in at 6:30 a.m., while most of the team comes in between 8 and 9. I arrive between 9 and 9:30 on most days unless I have an early meeting. And in addition to the flexible hours, "every four years you get a six-week paid vacation called a sabbatical when you're supposed to just take time off and 'recharge.'" Compensation Compensation at SGI is described as good but not astounding. "We are very competitive with all the high-tech companies, usually in the top 20 percent of the companies in the Valley," says one employee. The pay is generally a bit higher than comparable companies in the Valley," reports another. According to one insider, however, money is not the main payoff of working with SGI: "Don't expect to get rich here, but expect to get some great experience that you'll be able to take anywhere." Tenure does not correlate with compensation at SGI. "A person is measured against specific performance criteria for placement on a particular pay range," explains one employee. "All salary increases are merit-based; there are no 'standard' annual adjustments or anything of that sort that any given employee can plan on." "There's a definite bias on pay for performance," says another, "with people who get higher performance ratings getting larger pay increases. It's OK to be a 'meets expectations' performer, but not below that." As far as perks are concerned: "There's a great cafeteria on [the Mountain View] campus. There are espresso machines in all the buildings." "Benefits are good," says one insider, "including gym membership, stock options and a stock purchase plan." The mood turns gloomy Although employees at SGI are paid relatively well, the mood at Silicon Graphics was dampened in the past couple of years because of poor fiscal results and subsequent layoffs. "The company has recently gone through growing pains where they had to cut almost 10 percent of its workforce, the only layoffs ever," says one glum employee. Says one employee of close to 10 years: "When the company was flying high, we did lots of fun things-huge parties, free screening for the company of Jurassic Park, Tag Heuer watches for everyone." Those giddy days, however, have gone the way of dinosaurs: "Now that we are suffering a bit, the company is much more austere." Says another longtime employee, "the culture is changing as we emerge from the small-business mentality into a true internationally large company. Some of the fun is gone, but overall it is still a good place to work." "Think of SGI as a teenager passing through puberty into adulthood," advises one SGI insider. "That's where we are. Lots of changes, but a very worthwhile experience overall."
Human Resources
Selected Services:;Computer-assisted product design;Molecular modeling and computational chemistry;Visual modeling of data such as satellite feedings;Special effects and computer animation;Virtual reality;Multimedia development;Interactive TV and game development;Authoring and serving for the World Wide Web Products:;02, OCTANE, and Onyx2 Workstations;Origin and CHALLENGE Servers;Cray SV1TM, Cray T3ETM, Cray T90TM, and Origin2000TM Supercomputers;Peripherals;Remanufactured Products;Software
Apple Computer;Compaq;Dell Computer;Hewlett-Packard;IBM;Pixar;Sun Microsystems;Unisys More Company Profiles For more career information, go to Vault.com ©2000, Vault.com Inc
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