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Now that Intel is fabbing FPGAs for Achronix and Tabula, it is interesting to recall what happened when John East, then CEO of the FPGA specialist house Actel, went to try and get a similar fab deal from Andy Grove, then CEO of Intel.
“Andy Grove is a man of few words. A classy, but very down to earth guy,” says East, “when I met him in the Intel headquarters building everyone around him was looking good in their suits, white shirts and silk ties. When Andy came down the stairs, though, he was wearing jeans and an old sweater.”
“Andy didn’t want to go out to lunch because it was too hard to get a parking place when you came back. (He was the kind of guy who would never have a reserved parking place for himself. The best parking places ought to go to the people who got there earliest.) So .. we ate in the Intel cafeteria. We waited in line with everyone else. He paid cash for both our meals. Then we found a table that was at least a little isolated.”
“Actel was (and still is) a fabless company,” continues East, “Intel had the best fab technology. I wanted to be able to use the Intel technology for Actel’s FPGAs. The hard part was figuring out what we could give Intel in return that they would value but wouldn’t put them in direct competition with us. I thought I had it figured out. I had prepared a thick binder full of the details of my proposal and all the benefits that would accrue to Intel if they took us up on our offer. When we sat down I pulled out my massive binder, turned to page one, and started to take Andy through it. He stopped me. He reached over and closed the binder.”
‘John. In 25 words or less, what is it you want from Intel?’
‘Fab capacity on your advanced line.’
‘John. You’re a good guy. I like you. So I’m going to offer you a choice.’
‘Great. What’s that, Andy?’
‘I have a large staff of MBAs who came from really impressive schools who work on these kinds of proposals for us. They’re top notch. If you’d like I’ll give them your proposal and ask them to study it thoroughly and provide a well reasoned, written response. That will probably take them a month or so. I’m quite sure their answer will be no. The other option is that I can tell you no right now and save you from having to wait a month. Which way would you like to go on this?’
“There’s no beating around the bush when you’re dealing with Andy Grove!”
Reminds me of when ex colleague and friend Robert Heaton rang me in 1984 about a project going on in the background at Acorn computers in Cambridge. At the time I was a semi-custom chip team leader in Texas Instruments Bedford. Robert explained: “We’re working on this RISC chip and need some free tooling and silicon since there’s not much of a budget – in return, TI can have rights to any IP resulting ” – I did my best to get TI’s Jerry Rogers (later Cyrix) excited and failed miserably – we too came back pretty quickly with the ‘no can do’ answer. But of course at the end of the day resources plus commitment are needed in equal measure – timing is everything!