Intel visionary Andrew S. Grove passes away aged 79

Andrew S. Grove, the former CEO and Chairman of Intel, has passed away at age 79. During his lifetime he was an influential figure that wrote several best selling books and helped the company become the household name that it is today.

Grove has been with Intel since its beginning and was present at its founding in 1968 alongside Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. In 1979, he became president of the company and was later made CEO in 1987. From 1997 to 2005, Grove served as Chairman of the Board to Intel.

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Grove was born in Budapest, Hungary and later immigrated to the United States in 1956. He lived through the Nazi occupation and fled his country to avoid the repression of the Soviet Union. Grove then studied chemical engineering at the City College of New York and received a Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley in 1963. Gordon Moore hired him to work as a researcher at Fairchild Semiconductor where he later rose to the position of assistant head of research and development. Grove was the first employee hired by Moore and Noyce when they left the company to form Intel in 1968.

Grove will be most remembered at Intel for the part he played in moving the company’s focus from producing memory chips to designing and manufacturing microprocessors. This transition allowed the company to grow substantially and to become the strong well-known consumer brand that it is today. Intel began producing the 386 and Pentium chips that helped launch the modern PC era. Grove’s leadership also saw the company’s revenue increase from $1.9 billion to $26 billion annually.

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Intel flourished under Grove’s leadership and was able to successfully adapt and thrive throughout the early days of PCs, the Internet and Silicon Valley.

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