Andy Grove – Former CEO And Key Employee of Intel, Dies At 79

It is with great sadness that we lose another key member and founder of the modern tech industry, Andy Grove, who died Monday. While Intel was founded by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce from Fairchild Semi, Andy Grove was Intel’s first employee, later becoming a key individual in some of Intel’s future endeavors, and a driving force for the industry in general.

Andy’s background is a tragic but heroic tale, being a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust and 1956 Soviet Invasion. As a Hungarian refugee who fled to the United States, he earned a bachelor’s degree and then later, a PhD in chemical engineering. This was despite having a hearing impediment due to an acute case of Scarlet Fever in his youth, and knowing barely any English when he arrived in the States. Grove started work at Fairchild Semiconductor as a researcher after graduation, under the management of Gordon Moore.

In 1968, Moore and Noyce left Fairchild to set up Intel, bringing with them Andy Grove. Andy played a critical role in convincing Intel to move away from DRAM manufacturing and instead build microprocessors. This inevitably led to the creation of the x86 microarchitecture, and eventually convincing IBM to use it as the core for its ‘Personal Computer’ – that crazy little invention that would never catch on.

Grove became president of Intel in 1979, and later CEO in 1987. He stepped down as CEO in 1998, and then served as Chairman of the Board until leaving Intel in 2005. During that time, he not only helped mold the tech industry, but also became an astute businessman, later writing a book called Only the Paranoid Survive. He helped keep Intel fresh in a constantly changing environment, creating one of the most profitable companies of all time – reaching a market valuation of $500 billion in 2000.

Grove’s tenure at Intel was not without its problems; a time of aggressive business practices in the 90s, and the poor handling of the Pentium’s floating point division bug. In what was a difficult period though, Grove was diagnosed in 1994 with prostrate cancer, but through an unconventional choice in treatment, was effectively cured by 1996. In 2000, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, eventually limiting his speech and movement – to which he decided to take up kick-boxing to counteract.

Andy Grove leaves his wife of 54 years, two daughters, and 8 grandchildren. In his retirement he contributed extensively to Parkinson’s research while raising its awareness. He also provided $26 million to the City College of New York to help establish the Grove School of Engineering.