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The Charlie Rose Show Andrew S. Grove CHARLIE ROSE, host: Mr. ANDY GROVE (Chairman, Intel):It wasn't hard because it was painful; it was hard because I was torn between 'was I really discriminated against,' or'am I whining about it?' And I knew I was discriminated against, but when I talk about it, I didn't like myself complaining about it. I don't like complainers; I don't like to be a complainer. So, it's a push and pull between wanting to talk about how I was treated, but feeling reticent to talk about it because of what it made me sound--sound like. ROSE: And Peter Burgen talks about his interview with Osama bin Laden several years ago. * * * ROSE: Andrew Grove is here. He is best known as an early visionary of the computer revolution. He was the CEO of Intel for more than a decade; he is still its chairman. During his tenure there he oversaw the company's watch for expansion and led it to become the world's leading chip maker. While securing his place as an industry leader, Andy Grove long kept private the painful history of his own upbringing. In his new memoir "Swimming Across" he described that childhood in occupied Hungary and his eventual escape to the West at the age of 20. He is a friend of mine, he is a friend of this broadcast, and I am pleased to have him here, because this is a powerful memoir that many of his friends have wanted him to tell. And we're pleased he has told this story because of a lot of reasons, and I am pleased to have him here. I am deliberately, because I think it's such an important story to tell, not going to do all the things I normally do--sort of ask you where the future is going and all of those kinds of things. Mr. GROVE: Well, that's a relief. ROSE: Only on the condition that you will allow me to do that at another time. Mr. GROVE: Anytime. ROSE: You finally decided that you should do this because? Mr. GROVE: Because I became a grandfather, and the realization struck me that by the time I'm going to be--my grandchildren are going to be old enough to understand my story, I'll be too old to tell it to them. And my kids and my wife and my family and close friends have heard most of the stories in the book; not in context, not in sequence,but they've heard them. ROSE: Not in one telling, so to speak. Mr. GROVE: Not in one telling, not in an orderly fashion--so I had practised telling the story in bits and pieces, but 20 years from now, the chances that I'll be able to tell the stories and do justice to them is less likely. ROSE: That is the most important thing. Mr. GROVE: That is. ROSE: 1997, I think it was, you were Time magazine's 'Man of the Year,' and they had a Time magazine reporter who came and wanted to know more about the influences that have shaped... Mr. GROVE: Correct. ROSE: That made a difference. Mr. GROVE: That made a difference in the sense that that was the first time somebody got me to talk about it publicly at all; and so the two things--actually, you are very correct--coincided in late 97. Josh Ramo, who was the writer of that story, cracked through my reticent of talking about it in public, and in 97 I became a grandfather for the first time, so I had an audience for the story. So, I started thinking about it; I told Time,and is Time magazine the only thing I'm going to leave for my grandchildren? I could do a bit better. At least I thought I could do a bit better. That remains to be seen. ROSE: Well, you have done better. You had not told it before because...? Mr. GROVE: All the--look, I've been on your show a number of times. You want to talk about technology, you want to talk about Intel, you want to talk about the industry... ROSE: And I want to talk about you. Mr. GROVE: I didn't want to talk about circumstances like this. The two subjects have nothing to do with each other. Everybody has a past and a legacy. Mine happens to be including wars and repressions and the like. I didn't want to use that to publicize my Intel story any more than I would like to use the Intel story to publicize my personal story. ROSE: Exactly. It was that. It wasn't because of something--the pain was too much, or the sheer sense of re-telling the story? Mr. GROVE: Not really, because then I wouldn't have told my family about it. It was never difficult to talk about to another audience that I thought was interested, and my family was interested, and I told them. I told some of it several times--a particular story. When I wrote the book,I wrote a sample chapter to see what the narrative would look like, and this chapter I chose was the story of how I got out of Hungary--got across the border. I chose that partly because it was dramatic, and partly because I told it so many times that I thought it would be the easiest to tell, and it was easy to tell. ROSE: Harder to tell is when you saw your father comeback. Mr. GROVE: True. Some of the stories are even harder than that. ROSE: Like which ones? Mr. GROVE: My mother's encounter with Russian soldiers. ROSE: You were taken out of the room... Mr. GROVE: Correct. ROSE: She was treated badly. Mr. GROVE: Yes. ROSE: And others? Mr. GROVE: I think the general sense of being persecuted,picked on, discriminated against because of being Jewish. It wasn't hard because it was painful; it was hard because I was torn between 'was I really discriminated against,' or'am I whining about it?' And I knew I was discriminated against, but when I talk about it, I didn't like myself complaining about it. I don't like complainers; I don't like to be a complainer. So, it's a push and pull between wanting to talk about how I was treated, but feeling reticent to talk about it because of what it made me sound--sound like. ROSE: You have no interest in going back to Hungary. Mr. GROVE: Not really. ROSE: Not really? Mr. GROVE: No. No interest. The country that never made me feel wanted when I was an ordinary kid growing up--a student, high school student, university student--I was always reminded that I didn't belong there, so why should I want to go back there? ROSE: An interesting thing--in the beginning, you wanted to be a writer, a journalist? Mr. GROVE: True. ROSE: Wouldn't it be fun if Andy Grove was one of our colleagues? Mr. GROVE: Well, after a fashion (sic) I am. I've written a bunch of stories, a bunch of books... ROSE: That's true, you have. Mr. GROVE: Not exactly reporting. ROSE: No, but telling a story. Mr. GROVE: Yeah. ROSE: Telling a story about your battle with prostate cancer. Mr. GROVE: Right. That was personal. ROSE: That was very personal, but I never understood why that? Mr. GROVE: I had a mission. ROSE: To educate people? Mr. GROVE: Mm-hmm. ROSE: Do you find that when you start writing this kind of thing that you remember much more than you did? Mr. GROVE: I did not know what to expect. When I started putting things to (sic) paper, I kind of let memories flow,and I had no idea if I'd had enough for a book or a short story or a little 10 page memo that I would just keep in the family. And when recollections flowed, they brought,dragged with them other recollections, and eventually they stopped dragging new recollections. And I stopped and I counted that there were 250 scenes--kind of pictures of a scene in a movie, flashbacks of a particular event, certain people doing something. That was a scene; that was a page. There were 250 such pages of 250 such scenes. I kind of figured that by the time I embellished those and dropped some of them and combined some of them that it's going to be a book-length story, and I turned out to be right. But I had no idea if I was going to end up with 10 of those scenes or 500 of them. ROSE: What impact did "Angela's Ashes" have on you? Mr. GROVE: "Angela's Ashes" was my role model. ROSE: By Frank McCourt. Mr. GROVE: By the way, in all fairness, I should mention that I read "Angela's Ashes" around the time I started thinking about the book--about writing a book like that. And then I read the story of this Irish boy, young man, who comes to America at age 20, and it parallels my story in many ways. And what grabbed me was the masterful way Frank McCourt tells the story from the perspective of a 5 year old, 7 year old, a 12 year old; and I was looking at that and wondering if I could do that. So, the competitive juices started flowing a little, and not that I ever pretended to reach him. I mean, the man is a pro, a lyrical writer; and I'm an engineer turned writer. So, I can't hope to equal him, but that was my role model. ROSE: And you learned that how to--it was instructivto youou in telling...? Mr. GROVE: Telling the story as a person that was me a given age could conceivably have seen the levels of observation that was really embedded in what he remembered... ROSE: What he remembered in and what you remembered in. Mr. GROVE: Right. ROSE: September 11th came--a battle against terrorism. Did you say, 'Oh my God'? Mr. GROVE: I said 'Oh my God,' and but I said one more thing. ROSE: One more thing? Mr. GROVE: 'Do I have to go through this again?' A moment, I have to admit, of self pity. ROSE: Self pity? Mr. GROVE: Yeah. September 11th wasn't about me. September 11th was about thousands of people who died and tens of thousands of family members and the like. So, I have to admit that it was a self-centered thought, but I looked at it in that I've been through a war, a World War; I've been through a revolution; I've been through repression, and now this. So, that was my immediate reaction, and subsequently conversations that I had with people who had gone through the war, that was a common reaction. ROSE: Oh my God, here it comes. I'll have to do this again? Mr. GROVE: Yeah. ROSE: Part of the reason that people wanted you to write this book, others--A, because they admired you and they think that there's a personal, powerful story. They also believe that this story will give us insight into the man, that it will show us what makes Andy tick. Do you think it does? Mr. GROVE: If it does, I would be the last person to recognize it. I don't see the connection between these events and how I turned out. ROSE: No causal factor relationship? Mr. GROVE: I don't think so--just a common sense look at it. Millions of people went through the same experience, thousands of people went through the same experience who ended up in my field, my business or related businesses. People turn out different; they all lead different lives. We are individuals who were put into the crucible of a certain set of events, a certain environment. Our make up because of that crucible doesn't result in an adult of a particular brand, particular kind. So, I don't think you can draw too many analogies. I know it's tempting to do. Everybody tries to do that, but... ROSE: That's what they would expect; that's what they would understand, you know that? Mr. GROVE: Yeah. ROSE: But you don't see it? Mr. GROVE: I don't see it. ROSE: Is it because you don't know--I mean do you think you understand who Andy is--what makes Andy tick yourself? Or is that the kind of thing that you, because you're an engineer, would not have any interest in you--understanding how I am and what makes me tick and why I am the way I am just has little interest? Mr. GROVE: It has little interest, and if I had any interest in it, I would be very dubious of my ability to sort these things out. You know, I'm really more interested in what to do next, and how to approach certain things than how to reflect on the honorable. ROSE: Not a guy who looks back? Mr. GROVE: Well, I can't say that I'm not a guy who... ROSE: Well, you found your ability. Mr. GROVE: I just did, but not from an analytical standpoint, but more from telling a story. ROSE: Just telling a story. Mr. GROVE: It's a story meant for a particular audience, my own family present and future. And it's a story that's meant to be a story of me and through me of a time and a place. ROSE: Did you have to leave things out? Mr. GROVE: I did not. ROSE: Nothing? Mr. GROVE: Nothing. ROSE: Not a story, not a person, not a... Mr. GROVE: Well, I cannot tell a lie. It's a trivial little story, but it was trivial enough that I left it out in the editing process. And my wife, who loved that particular incident, gave me a real rough time for leaving it out. ROSE: Go Eva! Mr. GROVE: So, I have no choice but sticking it back in the paperback edition assuming that there's going to be a paperback edition sometime. ROSE: Will you tell me the story now? Mr. GROVE: Sure. It had to do with me fainting once as a teenager. I went to an outhouse with a friend of mine--a close friend of mine that I describe in the book--and it was a very windy day, and the wind slammed the outhousedoor on my foot, scraped it in a very painful way, and I collapsed in the outhouse from the shock of the pain. And I describe my reaction coming to and realizing that there was a black hole in my life when I fainted. I couldn't tell if it was two seconds or two days. ROSE: Yes. Mr. GROVE: And my own indignation over blacking out and scared and descended--I mean, it's no big deal, which is why I took it out in the editing. But my wife liked it so well (sic) that she thought it was somehow very much me, so I surrendered. I'm going to put it back. ROSE: Can you, with respect to the experiences of totalitarianism, fascism, dictatorships, control, governments that occupy and impose their will, absence of freedom of expression, discrimination against religious and ethnic groups--are you smart about this? When you've gone through this, does it make you--do you have some sense of being more nervous about it, more fearful about it, more...? Mr. GROVE: More sensitive. I'm very aware of what it is like to be a minority that is picked on. And I want to give you an example since you brought up the September 11 thaftermath--I was horrified at what happened. I was depressed over what happened, but very soon after that I started worrying about all of those poor Middle Easterners who are going to get singled out who had nothing whatsoever to do with it. They're going to be singled out because they are part of an ethnic group that has something to do with it, and sure enough some incidents happened along that line, and I kind of anticipated that they would. I really felt for them. I think I felt for them because I kind of knew that but there for the grace of God go I--I have gone. I'm pretty sensitive to that; I'm pretty sensitive to accepting people as individuals as a result of--probably as a reaction to not having been accepted as an individual. ROSE: Do you believe in this whole notion that--that that(sic) doesn't kill me will only make me stronger? Mr. GROVE: Only somebody who hasn't gone through shit would come up with a phrase like that. ROSE: It doesn't do that? Mr. GROVE: I don't know if it does or not, but it's avery pitiful consolation prize. That... ROSE: It's not worth it? Mr. GROVE: ...that doesn't kill you--I will complete that sentence--that that doesn't kill you might very well have. I don't recommend it as a treatment for strength building. ROSE: Who are the heros here? Mr. GROVE: In the book? My mother, my father. I had a very supportive set of parents, one of whom wasn't around during the most critical years; he was fighting for his own life. ROSE: In a concentration camp. Mr. GROVE: In a concentration--Russian prison camp. My mother, I dedicated the book to my mother. I say (to her) in the dedication for giving me life more than once, and I mean exactly that. My mother sheltered me from the worst of the war. ROSE: In what way? Mr. GROVE: Hid me. ROSE: Right. Mr. GROVE: Nurtured me, protected me--protected me by teaching me how to act and how to respond to certain things at a ridiculously young age. She acted as--my father was gone for three to four years during the toughest period of time--acted as the head of our family. It's kind of hard to come up with a hero that comes close to that. ROSE: Why do you think that you've gone through all of this and emerged with an extraordinarily successful life, and part of an extraordinary time in America, a leader in that time, been recognized as Time magazine's 'Man Of TheYear'--which, per se, is an honor, but at the same time it's a reflection of something you did--why Andy? Mr. GROVE: I'll answer that, but don't dismiss my answer. I was extraordinarily lucky. I'll give you an example of my luck: I got out of school, went to work for Fairchild,and my first assignment was having to do with the analysis with the basic transistor structure, device structure out of which modern integrator services are made. The branding field, someone had thought of putting me on the foundation work of the branding field. Weeks out of school I was one of the world's experts in a nascent, emerging field; and there were no experts, so therefore because I knew something about it, I became one of the experts. I was lucky because I got involved with Gordon Moore who saw things in me that I didn't see in myself. I had the opportunity to follow him to Intel, and consequently--I'm the kind of a person where I make the most of whatever opportunities I have. I'm not saying I didn't work at these, but I made some choices that I didn't have the right to be as lucky about in terms of career. I had some breaks; I had some people, like professor Schmidt who I describe in the book, like my PhD advisor, Andy Akervos, like Gordon Moore who nurtured me and supported me in a completely unselfish fashion in all of my career. Whatother word can you put on that but luck? ROSE: Luck. Who was it--someone once said that luck is where preparation meets opportunity? Mr. GROVE: That's approximately true, but the way I see it is that for the most part you can create opportunity; but when life provides you with opportunity, it's up to you to make the most of that opportunity. I tried to do that, but I'm very mindful that had I not had that one or several of those opportunities, the same characteristics, the same perseverance, the same hard word wouldn't have led to the same results. ROSE: Why "Swimming Across"? Mr. GROVE: Well, there's a story in the book that kind of gives it the literal reason. Should I tell the story? ROSE: Yes. I chose to ask it at this time. Mr. GROVE: Pardon? ROSE: I chose to ask it at this time. Mr. GROVE: OK. You are the boss, you set the time. Someplace in the middle of high school--the equivalent of high school--there was a parent teacher conference where my favorite high school teacher, Mr. Wiolanski, who was my physics teacher, a real character of a guy, was haranguing the assorted parents in the room and told this story, "Ladies and gentleman, life is a lake--like a lake. And all of these youngsters get in one side of the lake and they all start swimming, and every one of them are going to make it across. In fact, I'm only sure of one guy that's going to make it across, and that's--," and he said my name in Hungarian. So, my parents came home and told me that story, really, really pleased and proud. And it kind of became a metaphorical story. ROSE: Making it across? Mr. GROVE: Making it across--swimming across. ROSE: "Swimming Across"--I'm glad you did this. Mr. GROVE: I'm glad I did that, too. It feels good at this point. ROSE: The book, I said, is a memoir of Andrew S. Grove, "Swimming Across." Two things should be said about this--number one is that the proceeds for this book go to the International Rescue Committee; secondly, if you look at this cute little kid here, there is something else there which is a faint visibility of what? Mr. GROVE: In the words of my father that he wrote on the back of some old pictures while he was very, very ill in the prison camp, he thought he was dying and he was saying good-bye to my mother and myself, and as it turns out he did not die. He brought those pictures home and I have them in my possession, and those are the words of his good-bye. ROSE: Probably the most prized possession you have, I guess? Mr. GROVE: Yes. ROSE: Thank you. Mr. GROVE: Thank you. Transcript courtesy of The Charlie Rose program.* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. |
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