Andy Grove

Andy Grove passed away earlier today.  A pioneer of our industry.  I spent a memorable summer at Intel 25+ years ago, when Andy was the CEO.  My brother used to work at the then AI lab and I spent a summer working on some exciting new AI techniques and applying these to semiconductor manufacturing.  Andy met the interns, as he used to every year, and spoke from his heart about many things.  Excellence, being paranoid, what great leadership is all about, process excellence (he was passionate about seeing Intel be at least one generation ahead of the competition on the microprocessor manufacturing processes), about how there comes a time when the founders of a company leave and then their instincts and values have to be institutionalized into a company's culture and its structures and processes, and many other matters.  He also spoke to all of us about our potential, the human potential, with his own experience of surviving the holocaust as a youngster with his mother, escaping the soviet rule and coming to America, and becoming the first non-founder CEO of Intel.  Amazing man.  His determination to have Intel dominate not only the semiconductor technology, but its manufacturing process, helped create a giant company of our times that is a cornerstone of the digital world.  What an example of our human potential.  

R.I.P András István Gróf...