Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World's Most Powerful ChipCompany Hardcover – October 1, 1997

A great book. It seems like it just happened even though it covers 1970-95. I grew up during this time, so it is really meaning full when I read it. Author is a very good writer. He does a nice job of describing what cutthroat, innovative and game changing/lots of money business looks like.

This book offers a great insight into how Intel came to be.The balance between the human and technological aspects is good.Its a good book if you want to learn about the history of Intel and it's well written.

unlike most books on corporate america or stories about how exceptional american, against all odds, achieved exceptional things, this book did not do the typical left wing liberal spin to curse corporate america or give the same old same old "capitalism is evil" speech. the narratives detailed how a group of americans, in particular Noyce, Moore and Grove, took risk and boldly "go out and do something" (to quote Noyce) which eventually created wealth for himself/herself, for the employees and for many many people around the world (intel's employees and investors locate all over the world). these are people who in Anthony Robbins' definition as people who made positive difference in a lot of peoples' life. great book, extremely motivating. five star.

If you want to know how Intel started and how they became so big, read this book. You won't believe some of the things Intel has pulled on employees and outsiders.

A must read book to understand where it all began in silicon industry, what kind of challenges they faced and how did they resolve them. Very well written book, and one of the rare books that actually has insight into people management / relationships / politics.

Haven't finished reading it yet, I am about 60% thorough the book.

Wonderful book on the inner workings of Intel. The author is knowledable and writes very clearly. A great read for someone who was in the industry during that time period.

I was interviewed by Tim Jackson for this book about 15-16 years ago and some of what I said to him made it into the book. I generally thought he did a fair job. There were a few minor errors of fact or of emphasis (that is, how important something was). He offered me a chance to read his text in advance, but only if I agreed to an legal contract which I would've needed to hire a lawyer to explain the implications to me. I opted not to review any text, so perhaps this is part of why some minor errors made it into the final copy.But on to the big theme, which seems to be about how Andy Grove was treated in the book. A tyrant, a visionary, what?I met Andy several times, but only several, in my 12 years at Intel. I actually dealt with Gordon Moore many more times. This partly has to do with the particular projects I worked on.I have to say, during my years at Intel, 1974-86, I didn't feel intimidated by Andy (or Gordon, etc.). I didn't feel that "one wrong opinion" would lead to my dismissal. Having said this, there was always an element in my thinking, and that of all of my friends, that "this thing could end in a few years." Whether by layoffs affecting one personally, or the absorption of the company into some other company, it could end. So many other companies had fallen by the wayside that it just didn't reasonable to think of "the Intel of 30 years from now." Most of my friends didn't seem to think about "retiring at Intel" (except in the stock option sense!). Frankly, it still surprises me that that relatively small company I joined in 1974 is so dominant today.In a nutshell, in the 1970s I don't think many of us imagined the company surviving for 10 more years, let alone 30 or more years longer. I guess we just didn't have the imagination. (At least I didn't.) Nobody I knew then gave opinions about Intel in the year 2000 or 2010. (Yeah, there are always some "futurists" writing scenarios for a future. Perhaps someone wrote about how Intel would have its chips in every flying machine, or its chips in the lunar colonies.)To be sure, Andy had some "martinet" tendencies: the sign-in late sheet, the "Mr. Clean" inspections of offices and production areas. Part of this, I gather from ex-Fairchild employees at Intel, was that Andy had seen some incredibly sloppy practices at Fairchild and was reacting to this. But, my guess is that he's just one of those types that gets up at 5 am and can't understand why an engineer who had worked till 11 pm the night before might not be in at 8 am the next morning.(And something that outsiders seem to misunderstand, the "sign in late sheet" generally had no real implications. Nobody was punished for signing-in late too many times, to my knowledge. It was generally just a kind of tweak to slow down the slippery slope of engineers coming in later and later. Realize that for fab operators, or hourlies, coming in late create very real problems.)Andy had a bunch of these ideas about management.But calling him a monster of any sort, as some of the book reviews here seem to suggest, is just nonsensical.On to something else glaringly obvious about Tim Jackson's book: notice how no employees of Intel at the time the book was written were interviewed?Intel (apparently) chose not to cooperate with Tim Jackson in the writing of this book. I know of one very important technologist--crucial to Intel's survival in the formative 1968-73 period who had planned to cooperate with Jackson but who, Jackson told me, was advised by Intel not to cooperate. And so his story was only lightly alluded to, and his impact is under-reported. A pity, as his story ought to be part of the Intel story. I can think offhand of a dozen others who deserve at least as much coverage as I myself go, for instance. The difference is that I willingly spent several hours with Tim Jackson giving my story, answering questions, explaining some technology details, and answering later questions in e-mail.A detailed book about Intel has not yet been written. Bob Noyce had a couple of good articles done about him (I recall one by Tom Wolfe, the author, in Fortune or Forbes or some such). Gordon Moore and Andy Grove and others have had feature articles done on them. But no single book has really covered the story of Intel. And it's an important story, especially given that Intel is now the largest semiconductor company in the world. (I believe it is still larger than either Samsung or TSMC, though they are certainly doing well.)A shame, as there as has been no real history of Intel except Jackson's book. And his book missed a lot of key stories because key Intel employees were not involved. (There are a couple of Andy Grove's books, and one by Albert Yu, and maybe one other. But these are generally about small aspects of Intel, as with "High Output Management," a book I read but that seemed to have little relation to my experience at the company.)Fifteen years after Tim Jackson's book, with so many of the early employees now retired from Intel, I hope some journalist does another history. Intel may not be the powerhouse to the economy that it once was (not because chips are not important, but because in a lot of ways the chip industry has become like the steel or auto industry), but its story is at least as compelling as that of Apple.And Apple has had, what, a dozen books written about it?I'm still hoping that Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, Les Vadasz, Craig Barrett, Ed Gelbach or some of the dozen or others at the heart of the company will write a book on Intel. Or at least cooperate with an outside author. But no signs that I have seen so far.Which is too bad. The Intel story really needs to be told.--Tim May, Intel employee from 1974 to 1986

Interesting take on how Intel was formed.

Excellent livre qui retrace bien cette époque qui a vu la naissance de la technologie CMOS et des microprocesseurs. L'histoire d'Intel et des ses compétiteurs (Fairchild, AMD, Motorola, ...) y est décrite de façon relativement simple et précise et on y retrouve bien l'atmosphère de l'évolution de l'intégration a grande échelle des circuits intégrés (sur le plan technologique, mais aussi légal, ...) Un livre qui montre bien la compagnie sous son angle combatif et paranoïaque ("Only the paranoid survive") ainsi que son utilisation systématique de procédures légales (contre les produits et les personnes) ... Ce livre reste néanmoins accessible avec des chapitres courts et des descriptions techniques simples ...