Intel: Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive

Abstract

Andy Grove enhanced the microprocessor manufacturer Intel in the 1980s–90s by learning to adapt to the crises that he later termed ‘strategic inflection points’. The first section describes how and what CEO Grove learnt from these ‘inflection point’ adaptive crises. The second section describes his three-stage adaptive framework for dealing with these adaptive crises. It includes rapid adaptation and two other rational methods, diverse and institutionalized deliberation, plus a pre-deliberation experimental process that ‘delivers’ new product ideas. The third section focuses on this experimentation process, so important for high-tech firms seeking product innovation and diversification. Packard’s memoir The HP Way described the Hewlett-Packard decentralized, multi-divisional, experimentation system that produced a long series of innovations and diversifications. The final section discusses Steve Jobs’s relatively top-down, hands-on approach to experimentation and diversification, which provided Apple with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.