Ep 225 The Foundation of Silicon Valley with Ron Wittier

Ron Whittier Interview Introduction

Intel Corporation was founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, who left Fairchild Semiconductor to start their own company. In the early years from 1970 to 1978, Intel went through major inflection points that helped transform it from a startup to an industry leader.

Ron Whittier, who joined Intel in 1970 as an engineering manager, played a key role in navigating many of these pivotal moments. This included instilling the pioneering "Intel Culture" driven by Andy Grove, expanding into new product lines like microprocessors, raising funds through Intel's first public offering in 1972, and then rapidly scaling up design and manufacturing capabilities.

From 1978 to 2000, Intel experienced explosive growth riding the PC revolution and the emergence of the world-wide web. Ron helped the company successfully navigate through additional inflection points like improving manufacturing processes under Craig Barrett's leadership, the famous decision to exit the DRAM business to focus on microprocessors, developing major marketing campaigns like "Intel Inside", transitioning to being a sole microprocessor supplier, and forming new groups like the Intel Architecture Labs and Intel Capital.

Through recognizing and deftly navigating these many inflection points, Ron and Intel's leadership team transformed the company into a global technology powerhouse.

We talked about

 

• How did Intel balance looking for outside ideas and developing things internally?
• When you listen to historians talk about the history of Intel, what are they missing or not getting 100% correct?
• What words do you want to say to the next generation of Intel employees and entrepreneurs out there?
• Did you ever look at the other companies in Silicon Valley and think that their businesses were being run in ways that you wished to model?

And much more…