SanDisk
But nobody cares about all of that. If we did, SanDisk's stock would be rising today; the reported numbers outdid both management guidance and Wall Street expectations, and there was no massive buildup of investor hopes ahead of the report. SanDisk's share price has more than doubled in the past year, soundly trouncing other memory-makers such as Micron Technology
The culprit: SanDisk founder and longtime CEO Eli Harari picked this occasion to announce his retirement. The market reaction to this news is quite the opposite of what happened when The Wall Street Journal mused about Nokia
Harari is a highly respected figure in the semiconductor industry, having co-founded SanDisk from an engineering background rather than business and basing the venture on disappointments with memory chip strategy he'd experienced when working for now-competitor Intel
"It's amazing what you can achieve if you don't mind that somebody else gets the credit," Harari told USA TODAY earlier this summer. Now his younger friend and co-founder Sanjay Mehrotra will step up from COO to CEO and start taking credit for the work Harari has been doing over the past two decades. These are some big shoes to fill, and I can't blame the market for acting nervous about the change. Imagine Berkshire Hathaway without Warren Buffett. Yeah, it's a lot like that in SanDisk land right now.
Will Mehrotra take over the reins without a hiccup, or are the glory days over for SanDisk? Discuss in the comments below.