Hungarian born Andy Grove, former president of Intel, dies at 79

According to the MTI, the cause of his death has not been announced yet, but the Silicon Valley’s pioneer personality had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease in recent years.

Born to a Jewish family in 1936 in Budapest as András István Gróf, he emigrated to the US after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, where he continued his studies in chemical engineering. He earned his bachelor’s degree from The City College of New York and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

He started working for Fairchild Semiconductor, then in 1968 he joined Intel, founded by two of his Fairchild colleagues, which since has become the biggest manufacturer of semiconductors in the world.

He was the president of Intel for two decades, from 1979, then became CEO, and remained chairman of the board until 2005. He had been helping the company as senior advisor since then. He was chosen as Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 1997.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, one of Intel’s main partners in the building of the PC industry, said that Andy Grove’s death was “a huge loss” for the industry and everyone who knew him.

“Andy and I got to collaborate on several projects, and I never stopped learning from him,” said Gates. “He was at the forefront of creating the personal computer industry, and whenever we spent time together, I always came away impressed by his brilliance and vision.”

Copy editor: bm

Source: hirado.hu