ANDREW GROVE (1936-2016)
Silicon Valley might not exist without “Andy” Grove – born András Gróf in Budapest – as this semiconductor-industry pioneer blended technical skills with innovative business management to create a new corporate model as a founder and CEO of Intel. He certainly had many challenges to overcome; as a Jewish child during WWII, he and his mother only survived because friends sheltered them, and during Hungary’s 1956 Revolution, he escaped to Austria with no money and hardly any English. Nonetheless, he managed to move to New York a year later, where he worked as a busboy while earning his bachelor’s degree; he went on to get a PhD in chemical engineering from Berkeley in 1963. Grovestarted out as a researcher in California’s burgeoning semiconductor business, where he learned about the integrated circuits that made the “microcomputer revolution” possible, and in 1968 he joined Intel on its first day of existence as the company’s director of engineering. Grove was instrumental in driving Intel to become the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and the planet’s 7th biggest company – yet he always maintained an open approach toward management, working in an ordinary cubicle that was accessible to his employees and encouraging feedback (positive or negative), thus establishing the preferred leadership style of modern IT businesses.