Andy Grove, the Silicon Valley elder statesman who made Intel into the world’s top chipmaker and helped usher in the personal computer age, died on Tuesday at age 79, Intel said.

The company did not describe the circumstances of his death but Grove, who endured the Nazi occupation of Hungary during World War Two, living under a fake name, and came to the US to escape the chaos of Soviet rule, had suffered from Parkinson’s.

Grove was Intel’s first hire after it was founded in 1968 and became the practical-minded member of a triumvirate that eventually led “Intel Inside” processors to be used in more than 80 per cent of the world’s personal computers.

With his motto “only the paranoid survive,” which became the title of his best-selling management book, Grove championed an innovative environment within Intel that became a blueprint for successful California start-ups.

Grove, who was named man of the year by Time magazine in 1997, encouraged disagreement and insisted employees be vigilant of disruptions in industry and technology that could be major dangers - or opportunities - for Intel. In doing so, he could be mercurial and demanding with employees who he thought were not doing enough and in 1981 required the staff to work two extra hours a day with no extra pay.

Grove's overhaul of Intel's business - switching from digital memory to processors - was an early example of his obsession with detecting major shifts in business and technology and staying flexible enough to move quickly and make the most of them.

Related Topics