Andy Grove in 2000: ‘What I’ve Learned’

A few nuggets of wisdom from Andy Grove, in an interview with Esquire after he retired as Intel’s CEO, but still served as chairman:

Profits are the lifeblood of enterprise. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

You must understand your mistakes. Study the hell out of them. You’re not going to have the chance of making the same mistake again — you can’t step into the river again at the same place and the same time — but you will have the chance of making a similar mistake.

Status is a very dangerous thing. I’ve met too many people who make it a point of pride that they never take money out of a cash machine, people who are too good to have their own e-mail address, because that’s for everybody else but not them. It’s hard to fight the temptation to set yourself apart from the rest of the world.

Grove, still serving as CEO during Intel’s zenith in 1997, didn’t even have an office. He worked out of an 8x9-foot cubicle.

What you’re seeing today is a very, very rapid evolution of an industry where the milieu is better understood by people who grew up in the same time frame as the industry. A lot of the years that many of us have spent in business before this time are of only limited relevance.

This industry is not like any other. Computers don’t get incrementally more powerful; they get exponentially more powerful.

★ Tuesday, 3 December 2024