Grove was scary, I will agree with that. Going into a meeting with him was a fear many engineers and managers had. Personally, I loved going into a meeting he was in. He had a temper, but I didn't see it used very often (I've heard there were some shouting matches in other meetings.)
One thing Intel truly excelled at was something we used to joke about: getting consensus. (It's easy for anyone, especially engineers, to joke about the jargon and buzzwords, like "bottoming out" and "working the issues." But seeing how some companies fail to get consensus has made me appreciate the buzz phrases a lot more after retiring from Intel.)
Intel could have heated debates and even shouting matches, but once a decision was made or a strategy was selected, there was little backbiting, sabotage of competing projects, and empire-building. (Note: There is always some of this. And in some of the truly momentous forking paths, such as between architectural approaches, some rivalry is a good thing.)
From my friends at other companies, I gather that they could use a lot more of the "consensus" and "copy exactly" strategies Intel used. A case could be made that Vin Dham and other Intel folks who joined NexGen/AMD propagated some of these approaches to AMD and helped them a lot.
Anyway, on to what Watsonyouth says about Grove:
"In Inside Intel, Grove comes across as workaholic, abusive, ruthless, and with a seemingly pathological degree of paranoia. Definitely.... a very dark side to that guy. Perhaps something like an apolitical Richard Nixon..... so you might be right about the political angle..... especially if you consider Nixon a successful politician. It seems that Grove can be called many things (good and bad) but, in my opinion, ethical is not one of them. "
The author of the book "Inside Intel," Tim Jackson, was not given any access to any current employees. (He did talk to Gordon Moore before intel made a kind of "corporate decision" not to give him access to current employees.)
This, in my opinion, was Intel's mistake. While there have been nearly a dozen books about Apple Computer, some done with assistance from Apple, some done with no access, there has only been this single book about Intel written by a non-Intel person. And the books dealing with Intel written by Intel insiders, like the several books by Grove and the one(s) by Albert Yu, did not deal with the history of the company, the decisions made in the early years, or anything comparable to what Jackson covered. Mostly they are just books about various management theories.
Since Intel is a much more important company than Apple is or was, the lack of books is...strange. And perhaps Intel likes it this way, hence the stonewalling.
Anyway, on to a few comments about Andy Grove.
He was a manager many were in fear of. He was not afraid to announce that someone was "full of [the word SI is too afraid to let posters use]."
I was in some meetings with Grove, even a couple of one-on-one meetings. He was definitely Type A, definitely alert at all times, definitely not someone one wanted to try to pull a snowjob on.
Combined with Gordon's more amiable (most of the time) approach and both of their tack-sharp technical abilities, this made for a powerful combination.
If one was technically well-prepared, giving a presentation or answering questions before them could be exhilarating. I loved it in the late 70s when I had to go into the lion's den to make a presentation to the Executive Staff. What a rush.
I've never met Jerry Sanders, but I don't sense that he has either the vision of a Gordon Moore or the no-nonsense management style of an Andy Grove.
Lastly, I was hired by Craig Barret to work for him in his group in 1974. We shared an office. I think I've mentioned this before.
He is also a scary guy to work for. Let me explain. If you know your stuff, he very quickly grasps what you're saying. (I'm reverting to the "if you know" instead of "if one knows his" form.)
If you try to bull[SI disliked] him, he'll spot it immediately.
I can't speak about Otellini. And when I worked with Pat Gelsinger, he was a new college graduate (!).
But of the management team of Moore, Grove, and Barrett, I can see why Intel did so well in the last two decades, especially in the 90s.
--Tim May |
