John "Jack" F. Gifford (January 11, 1941 – January 11, 2009) was an American engineer and businessman best known as a founder and former CEO, President and Chairman of the Board of Maxim Integrated Products, an analog and mixed signal semiconductor company, located in San Jose, California.
He attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on a baseball scholarship and wanted to play professionally.
However, Gifford had married his high school sweetheart at age eighteen and realized he could not play baseball and support his wife and child.
In 1968, Gifford co-founded Advanced Micro Devices and served as the company's Vice President of Marketing and Planning.
Eventually, Gifford left farming to assume the full-time position as Vice President of the Analog Division and later CEO of Intersil.