The Intel Trinity

[Recorded: July 24, 2014]
In today’s world of Google, Facebook, and Twitter, the digital age has all but forgotten its beginnings and the man who created the device upon which all of these empires rested, the scientist behind two of the greatest inventions of the last century. Once hailed as the “Mayor of Silicon Valley,” Robert Noyce and his colleagues, the "Traitorous Eight,” sparked the technological revolution that we are still reaping the rewards from today. Noyce would eventually go on to cofound Intel, one of the most valuable companies in the world. Now, in his comprehensive and entertaining new book, The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World’s Most Important Company, well-connected and trusted technology writer Michael S. Malone brings to life the story behind the company that made possible the personal computer, the Internet, telecommunications and the personal electronics revolution.

On a warm September morning in 1957 seven key employees of Shockley Transistor of Mountain View, California decided to quit their jobs and strike out on their own, marking the beginning of what would become Silicon Valley. These men would go on to form Fairchild Semiconductor and revolutionize the way we work and live. Drawing on unprecedented access to the Intel archives and on interviews and oral histories from its earliest days through the present, Malone reveals how each member of the founding Intel trio brought different things at different times. Noyce was the charismatic leader and the most respected high-tech figure of his generation. Gordon Moore set the law that accelerated the pace of innovation—the biennial doubling of computer chip performance. Andy Grove was the greatest and most ferocious businessman of his generation. Together, these three achieved Intel’s historic success.