My top 10 highlights from The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce: How The Sun Rose On Silicon Valley by Tom Wolfe.
1. The revolution didn't just happen; it was engineered by a small number of people. Collectively they engineered tomorrow. Foremost among them is Robert Noyce.
2. Noyce had a passion for the scientific grind.
3. He had a profound and baffling self-confidence.
4. Young engineers were giving themselves over to a new technology as if it were a religious mission.
5. This wasn't a corporation. It was a congregation.
6. There were sermons. At Intel everyone, Noyce included, was expected to attend sessions on "the Intel Culture." At these sessions the principles by which the company was run were spelled out and discussed.
7. Noyce's idea was that every employee should feel that he could go as far and as fast in this industry as his talent would take him. He didn't want any employee to look at the structure of Intel and see a complex set of hurdles.
8. Noyce didn't even bother trying to find experienced management personnel. Instead, he recruited engineers right out of college and gave them major responsibilities right off the bat.
9. In Noyce's view, most of the young hotshots who were coming to work for Intel had never had the benefit of honest grades in their lives. In the late 1960s and early 1970s college faculties had been under pressure to give all students passing marks so they wouldn't have to go off to Vietnam, and they had caved in, until the entire grading system was meaningless. At Intel they would learn what measuring up meant.
10. If you're ambitious and hardworking, you want to be told how you're doing.
Listen to #356 How The Sun Rose On Silicon Valley: Bob Noyce (Founder of Intel) on Apple, Spotify, or the web.
Come hang out with me for two days and build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives by attending a Founders event:
July 29th-31st in Scotts Valley, California
2. Noyce had a passion for the scientific grind.
3. He had a profound and baffling self-confidence.
4. Young engineers were giving themselves over to a new technology as if it were a religious mission.
5. This wasn't a corporation. It was a congregation.
6. There were sermons. At Intel everyone, Noyce included, was expected to attend sessions on "the Intel Culture." At these sessions the principles by which the company was run were spelled out and discussed.
7. Noyce's idea was that every employee should feel that he could go as far and as fast in this industry as his talent would take him. He didn't want any employee to look at the structure of Intel and see a complex set of hurdles.
8. Noyce didn't even bother trying to find experienced management personnel. Instead, he recruited engineers right out of college and gave them major responsibilities right off the bat.
9. In Noyce's view, most of the young hotshots who were coming to work for Intel had never had the benefit of honest grades in their lives. In the late 1960s and early 1970s college faculties had been under pressure to give all students passing marks so they wouldn't have to go off to Vietnam, and they had caved in, until the entire grading system was meaningless. At Intel they would learn what measuring up meant.
10. If you're ambitious and hardworking, you want to be told how you're doing.
Listen to #356 How The Sun Rose On Silicon Valley: Bob Noyce (Founder of Intel) on Apple, Spotify, or the web.
Come hang out with me for two days and build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives by attending a Founders event:
July 29th-31st in Scotts Valley, California