Goodbye Andy Grove, CEO of Intel historian and a key figure in Silicon Valley

Andy Grove, one of the key figures in Intel's development since the late 70s, died yesterday at the age of 79 years. Grove has held various positions at Intel over the years, becoming its president in 1979 and CEO in 1987. From 1997 to 1998 Grove held the positions of CEO and Chairman, and then stay with the company until 2004 with the title of Chairman.

In the years during which Intel has worked in top positions Grove has been directly involved in the development of the company in the semiconductor industry and facilitating their transformation from a leading manufacturer of DRAM in the design and production of microprocessors. Of these years it is mentioned in particular the solutions 386 and 486, followed by the first family of Pentium processors that helped turn the computer market making it more personal and helping the x86 architecture spread in every area of ​​use.

As a significant highlight during his leadership as CEO, the company has grown from an annual turnover of 1.9 billion dollars until the threshold of 26 billion dollars. At present Intel's annual turnover is approximately twice that figure, to testify how the company has continued its evolution in the semiconductor industry.

Grove was born in Hungary, the country from which he immigrated to the US in 1957 at age 21. Initially he worked in Fairchild Semiconductor and was the first employee hired by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, the two founders of Intel, in 1968. In fact Grove was historical memory of what has been the evolution of Intel over the years, contributing more generally with its work and its strategic vision to the growth of Silicon Valley as we know it today.