#8 The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company

**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. So we're going to continue on this theme that we've talked about on past podcasts, and that's this idea that books are the original hyperlinks, that they lead you from one idea or one person to another, very much like the web does today. So the subject of today's podcast, Robert Noyce, I actually found out about him the same way I discovered Edwin Land, and that was through Isaacson's book on Steve Jobs.
So after hearing how much Steve Jobs was influenced by Robert Noyce, it made me want to learn more about who he was and why he was so influential. So today, we're going to be learning about the life and career of Robert Noyce through the book, The Intel Trinity, How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company. And this book's by Michael Malone. So we're going to go a little bit out of order today. When I originally started reading this book and coming up with the idea for this podcast, I thought I was going to talk about both founders of Intel. So Intel was founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. So we're going to touch a little bit on Gordon Moore today, but after I was done reading and then I would review the notes and the outline that I put together for these podcasts, I realized that 90% of what I wanted to talk about was with Robert Noyce. So that's why this episode's just basically about him. Gordon Moore is obviously important. He's the one that Moore's Law is named after. He was an extremely important technologist. But a lot less is known about him because he's still alive today, actually, but he doesn't have an official biography. So all of the podcasts we do are based on a book, and usually it's a biography of the entrepreneur.
And there's just a lot more information about Noyce out there online and in the book, too. And you'll see why as we continue here. So given the fact that I found out about Robert Noyce due to Steve Jobs, I want to read a few paragraphs about their relationship before we get into anything else.
And let's go to the book. A regular visitor to the Noyce household during this period was an intense and quixotic young man in the midst of a serious life crisis and desperate for help. Steve Jobs had been the most celebrated young entrepreneur of the age just a few years before. He made the cover of Time Magazine before his older and more successful Silicon Valley counterparts. And with the Macintosh computer introduced in early 1984, Jobs had become something even more. The embodiment of a new generation.
Steve Jobs was driven out of the company he had co-founded and for which he was the most visible face. Jobs then founded a competing company, Next. And in case you don't know, I did a long episode on Steve Jobs based on his book, so if you want to find out more, I'd recommend listening to that episode too. So Jobs founded a company called Next, but the company never really gained traction. Jobs was becoming a lost soul and at great risk of ending up, while still under 30, a once famous but now largely forgotten valley figure. So this is kind of surprising for those of us in the modern age, at least around my age and arguably younger. The Steve Jobs we may be familiar with is the Steve Jobs after he came back to Apple in 97 So I was born in the 80s.