#166 Robert Noyce (Intel)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high. So I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. Bob Noyce took me under his wing, Steve Jobs said. I was young, in my 20s, and he was in his early 50s. He tried to give me the lay of the land, to give me a perspective that I could only partially understand. You can't really understand what is going on now unless you understand what came before, Jobs said.
Before Intel and Google, before Microsoft and Apple, and Pixar, and stock option millionaires, and billionaire venture capitalists, there was a group of eight young men, six of them with PhDs, none of them over 32, who disliked their boss and decided to start their own transistor company. It was 1957
Leading the group of eight was an Iowa born physicist named Robert Noyce, a minister's son and former champion diver with a doctorate from MIT and a mind so quick that his friends called him Rapid Robert. Over the next decade, Noyce managed that company, called Fairchild Semiconductor, by teaching himself business skills as he went along.
In 1968, Noyce and his Fairchild co-founder, Gordon Moore, launched their own new venture, a tiny company they called Intel.
Noyce believed that big was bad, or if not downright bad, at least not as much fun as small companies in which everyone works much harder and cooperates more.
When he left daily management at Intel in 1975, he turned his attention to the next generation of high tech entrepreneurs.
That's how he met jobs, and that's how he came to serve on the boards of a half a dozen startup companies, and informally provide seed money to many more.
He strongly believed he was doing his part, as he put it, to re-stock the stream I've fished from.
He always threw himself entirely into the activity at hand, and whatever he did, he tried to excel.
His powers of persuasion were legendary. He inspired in nearly everyone whom he encountered a sense that the future had no limits, and that together they could, as he liked to say, go off and do something wonderful.
He was like the Pied Piper. If Bob wanted you to do something, you did it.
His was not a simple personality. He was a small town boy suspicious of large bureaucracies, yet he built two companies that between them employed tens of thousands of people. He was a preacher's son who rejected organized religion, an outstanding athlete who chain smoked, and an intensely competitive man who was greatly concerned that people like him.
His favorite ski jacket featured a patch that declared, no guts, no glory. And it was a fitting motto for a man who flew his own airplanes and chartered helicopters to drop him off on mountaintops so he could ski down through the trees.
He was worth tens of millions and owned several planes and houses, but nonetheless somehow maintained a just folks sort of charm.
Warren Buffett, who served on a college board with Noyce for several years, said everybody liked Bob. He was an extraordinary smart guy who didn't need to let you know he was that smart.
He could be your neighbor, but he had lots of machinery in his head.
His mother described him best when she said that he liked to do a lot of things and do them well.
That was an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is The Man Behind the Microchip, Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley, and it was written by Leslie Berlin. Okay, so all the way back on Founders number eight, I read the book The Intel Trinity and focused mainly on Bob Noyce. And I discovered Bob Noyce by reading a biography of Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs talks about at length how important Bob Noyce was as a mentor and how much he learned from him. So that's how I found that book. Now I think is another great time to dedicate an entire podcast to Bob Noyce because last week, and I consider this part two from last week's podcast, okay? And William Shockley and Bob Noyce both worked in the same industry. Bob Noyce used to work for William Shockley. Let's say they even have the same level of intelligence and similar skills.