In 1991, an instructor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business presented his class with a case study. It went like this: A CEO was scheduled to address a major industry gathering, and he could give one of three speeches. The first would publicly commit his company to incorporating a sexy, sophisticated new technology in its products. The second speech would reaffirm the company's commitment to developing its existing technology. The third speech would do neither, leaving the decision to "the market." The stakes were enormous: A wrong decision could well ruin the business. What should the CEO do? The question was more than academic, because the CEO described in the case was also the man at the front of the classroom. Dr. Andrew S. Grove, like professor Indiana Jones, was better known for his exploits as "Andy," the famous leader of Intel Corp. But unlike Indy, Grove wasn't simply biding time here between adventures. His question was meant not just to challenge students' thinking but to advance his own. That big speech was three weeks away, and Grove had yet to make up his mind. He didn't know the answer.  It's not common for any CEO to stand before an audience and say, "I don't know what to do. What do you think?" It's even less common for that CEO to listen to the responses and take them seriously. But Grove, 69, has never lost track of the truth: that Intel has always been one wrong answer away from disasterand that a closed mind is a trap door to the abyss.  Grove and Intel are now embedded so deeply Inside our minds, our computers, and our culturethe man has been on 77 magazine covers, by one countthat with hindsight, their success seems foreordained. But the opposite is the case: By all odds, Intel should have failed. It should have been destroyed by the same brutal international competition that has killed apparel companies, tire companies, and television companies, or fallen into obscurity like Zilog and other successful chipmakers. Intel, too, should have stumbled on the terrifying treadmill of Moore's Law, which requires betting billions upon billions of dollars on ever more costly factories to make chips you're still developing for customers who've yet to demand them. It should have been eclipsed by an upstart competitor with a better mousetrap. Intel's success should never have happenedit was an anomaly, an outlier, a freak.  That's why Grove had chosen himself as the day's case study in the class he was teaching with professor Robert Burgelman, his longtime collaborator and the author of Strategy Is Destiny. In business you often don't see the cliff until you've already walked over it. Visibility on the ground is bad, and the roadmapwell, that can't be trusted either. To spot the next cliff, Andy Grove was willing to let go of his instinctssince they could be wrongand view himself as a student might: from outside, peering down with the wide-angle, disinterested perspective of the observer. Did the man below seem aware of his surroundings? Was he choosing the correct path? Was there a 1,000-foot drop ahead?  Normally, our society observes a division of labor. Musicians don't critique, and critics don't compose. Quarterbacks decide on Sunday, and fans deride on Monday. It is the singular ability to inhabit both roles at oncesubject and object, actor and audience, master and studentthat sets Grove apart. And it's why, for everything that has been written by and about him, we have yet to appreciate his biggest legacy. Andy Grove is America's greatest student and teacher of business.  By analyzing the decisions he made on the road to becoming a great leader, you can learn to hone your own leadership skills. Because there's no gain in being able to recruit great employees, handle a board, dazzle Wall Street, or rally your cavalry for a glorious charge at dawn's early light if you haven't figured out which way to point the horses.
A Harvard historian explains how Intel's legendary chief became the best model we have for leading a business in the 21st century.