1: “There’s wind and then there’s a typhoon, there are waves and then there’s a tsunami,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

The same is true in business.

“There are competitive forces and then there are supercompetitive forces,” he notes.

Andy calls it a “10X” change.

2: Harvard Professor Michael Porter identified the various forces that determine … continue reading

1: “We managers like to talk about change, so much that embracing change has become a cliché of management,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

But not all changes are the same.

What Andy calls “a strategic inflection point is not just any change,” he notes. “It compares to change the way Class VI rapids on a … continue reading

1: Then Intel CEO Andy Grove was sitting in a conference room with other members of the Intel team.

The topic? “Evaluations of a certain highly touted new software from a company whose other products we already use,” Andy writes in his legendary business book, Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

Intel’s head of Information Technology shared the challenges her team … continue reading

1: I’m often credited with the motto, “Only the paranoid survive,” former Intel Chairman and CEO Andy Grove writes in his legendary business book of the same name.

“I have no idea when I first said this,” Andy notes, “but the fact remains that, when it comes to business, I believe in the value of paranoia.”

Why?

Because “business success contains the seeds of its own destruction,” he observes. “The … continue reading

1: Intel president Andy Grove was nervous.

It was 1986. Andy had flown to Oregon to address Intel’s best developers, recognizing that the company stood at a crossroads, he writes in his book Only the Paranoid Survive.

Since the company’s inception, memory chips had been the company’s core business.

But now the company was exiting the memory chip business because Japanese competitors had entered the market with higher quality … continue reading

1: When former Intel CEO Andy Grove was in school, the instructor in his management class showed a scene from the World War II movie Twelve o’Clock High.

A new leader was brought in to reform a rogue squadron whose lack of discipline led to self-destruction.

“On his way to take charge,” Andy writes in his book Only the Paranoid Survive, “the new commander stops his car, steps … continue reading

1: “We had lost our bearings. We were wandering in the valley of death,” Andy Grove writes in his book Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

The year was 1984, a pivotal moment for Intel.

The company had been founded 16 years earlier.  “Every start-up has some kind of a core idea,” Andy notes.

“Ours was simple. Semiconductor technology had … continue reading

1: It was the summer of 1985.

One of Silicon Valley’s most legendary meetings was about to happen.

“I was in my office with Intel’s chairman and CEO, Gordon Moore, and we were discussing our quandary,” Andy Grove writes in his book Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

“Our mood was downbeat,” Andy recalls.

“I looked out the window at … continue reading

1: “The peacetime CEO does not resemble the wartime CEO,” Ben Horowitz writes in The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.

One example? “A basic principle in most management books is that you should never embarrass an employee in a public setting,” Ben notes.

“On the other hand, in a room filled with people, [Intel CEO] Andy Grove once said to … continue reading