Intel Pioneer Grove Recalls Life's Lessons

Is escaping disease and oppression good training for leading a tech firm?

Ashlee Vance, IDG News Service

To a man raised in a Jewish family in wartime Hungary, under the rule of first the occupying Nazi forces, and subsequently the occupying Soviet forces, the term "adversity" means a great deal more than just a slowdown in the tech economy.

The upbringing of Andrew Grove, who made it through those desperate beginnings to become one of the technology industry's most powerful individuals as the chairman of Intel, could hardly be more different from the audience of Silicon Valley socialites he addressed recently at a recent Churchill Club dinner. But given what Grove has achieved, the lessons he learned when growing up appear to have universal relevance.

With Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, former coworkers at Fairchild Semiconductor, Grove cofounded Intel in 1968. He served as chief executive officer from 1987 until 1998, and as president from 1979 to 1997. He was named chair in 1997.

Recalling Escape

As he recounts in his new book, Swimming Across: A Memoir, Grove was almost killed at age 4 by scarlet fever. When he was 7, his father was conscripted into a labor battalion and sent to the Russian front, where he "disappeared," according to the official notification.

The following year, the Nazis began deporting or exterminating rural Hungarian Jews as the military situation worsened. Before the pogrom could reach Budapest and the young Grove, the German military collapsed, to be replaced by the advancing Russian troops.

But the Soviets proved to be as heavy-handed as oppressors as the Germans had been, and in 1956, college students helped inspire a revolt that briefly pushed the Soviets out of Budapest. The teenage Grove found himself embroiled in the conflict. Inspired by advice from an aunt--an Auschwitz survivor--Grove said goodbye to his parents one night, put his house key in his mother's hands and headed out to a farm on the outskirts of the Hungarian/Austrian border.

He walked for miles with other students and eventually arrived at a country house near the border. Under cover of darkness, Grove gathered his courage for the final stretch of his journey, going to the outhouse knowing that would be "the last part of me I would leave in Hungary."

Grove crossed the border later that night, stumbling upon a stranger while still excited from his run across the border. "Relax, you are in Austria," the stranger said in Hungarian.

Running from danger and heading into the unknown, Grove remained positive.

"You just hope, because what else is there to do," he said, while answering audience questions.

Grove later emigrated to the United States and attended City College of New York followed by the University of California at Berkeley. He would then meet Gordon Moore and together they would make history as two of the toughest players in the technology industry.

Business Lessons

It seems natural that overcoming physical hardships and mental terror could inspire the right kind of person to become a leader. But Grove, although he admits that his childhood in Hungary left marks on his psyche, maintained that he could not point to ways in which his experiences affected the way he ran a business.

Yet, in earlier conversations, he has hinted as to what lessons he has brought to Intel.

"I attribute Intel's ability to sustain success to being constantly on the alert for threats, either technological or competitive in nature," he said in an interview about his earlier book, Only the Paranoid Survive.

His advice to the Churchill Club audience was to pursue their dreams regardless of the costs involved or the barriers stacked against them, echoing earlier advice that success largely depends on "your timing and your commitment and your skill."

His survival and ultimate success has convinced many people that Grove does have some kind of magic formula, judging by the way his new book has zoomed up the bestseller chart at Amazon.com.

Despite his achievements, which include being Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1997, the challenging times have stayed close to his heart. In particular, Grove has never returned to his native Hungary.

"I never did and have no desire to go back," he said. "Why do I want to go back to a place that did not want me?"