Product Description
Hailed as the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford of Silicon Valley, Robert Noyce was a brilliant inventor, a leading entrepreneur, and a daring risk taker who piloted his own jets and skied mountains accessible only by helicopter. Now, in The Man Behind the Microchip, Leslie Berlin captures not only this colorful individual but also the vibrant interplay of technology, business, money, politics, and culture that defines Silicon Valley.
Here is the life of a high-tech industry giant. The co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, Noyce co-invented the integrated circuit, the electronic heart of every modern computer, automobile, cellular telephone, advanced weapon, and video game. With access to never-before-seen documents, Berlin paints a fascinating portrait of Noyce: an ambitious and intensely competitive multimillionaire who exuded a "just folks" sort of charm, a Midwestern preacher's son who rejected organized religion but would counsel his employees to "go off and do something wonderful," a man who never looked back and sometimes paid a price for it. In addition, this vivid narrative sheds light on Noyce's friends and associates, including some of the best-known managers, venture capitalists, and creative minds in Silicon Valley. Berlin draws upon interviews with dozens of key players in modern American business--including Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, Gordon Moore, and Warren Buffett; their recollections of Noyce give readers a privileged, first-hand look inside the dynamic world of high-tech entrepreneurship.
A modern American success story, The Man Behind the Microchip illuminates the triumphs and setbacks of one of the most important inventors and entrepreneurs of our time.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 11 reviews)

Inspiration for those with ADD!

Robert Noyce had all of the significant traits of ADD. Any parent devastated by their child's diagnosis should read this to see what one can accomplish when one uses one's strengths. This book shows the positive side of ADD.

The book gets a bit detailed in some spots, and is overly repetitive in others, but overall is an interesting read.
September 25, 2007

Get things open !

The author uses a lot of first hand material still available from people close to Bob Noyce. You will eat it fast, because you can get the "life mood" from well synthesized private life and public life smartly chosen events. The story of a guy that did put the moral value driven face of America high, from the cubicle to the world stage. The explanations around the new "silicon valley" management style are also very didactic, and has more value in it than most of expensive seminars. You can get the essence of it.
... In some places , it is close to hagiography, probably the beyond the grave aura of Bob Noyce ...and you can get contaminated...
July 13, 2007

Raises the Bar for biography

The book has a fascinating subject and is well written. It fully captures and holds your attention. The author is very deft in handling arguments or controversies Noyce was involved in, presenting facts without bias. The book is even-handed and intelligent.

From a literary point of view, I think the book raises the bar in terms of biograpical research. I've read a lot of biographies, and I've never seen one as well documented as this. Almost every sentenced can be traced back to its source. In addition, it has original research. I believe the author is responsible for discovering that Noyce's NDR diode was at least coincident with Esaki's Noble-prize winning work. Overall, an excellent read.
March 19, 2006

Slanted and Incomplete

I've spent 30 plus years in this and related industries. As a partial introduction to IC's and their "market successful" agents, it is OK. As entertainment it is good, just don't forget you are being entertained! As a biography of Noyce it is only partial. That the rest of the story with Jack Kilby, Texas Instuments, and non-Noyce IC industry and players is missing makes it very bad history. That the patent fight history and the rules for patents, mainly that continuous work on ideas must be shown or it's "abandoned", are not covered makes it very much a dis-eduational offering. The big truth, stated deep in the book, that "Credit floats up.", almost makes the reading good, but not quite!
December 30, 2005

a vanished Silicon Valley

Berlin has performed an amazing amount of detailed research into Noyce's life. She takes us back to the years when the semiconductor industry was born, and shows us how Noyce helped make it flourish in Silicon Valley.

A striking passage describes how Noyce anticipated the observation of negative differential resistance in a tunnel diode. Some 18 months before Leo Esaki in Tokyo discovered it. Esaki would win the Nobel in Physics for his work. In one of these what-ifs, Noyce could easily have taken that for himself.

By the way, the book's explanation of negative resistance is a trifle awkward. The quantum mechanical phenomenon cannot be easily explained to a general audience. (As a grad student, I had the same problem of discussing this about my research, to laymen.) But if it puzzles you, remember that it also eluded a lot of people in the 1950s.

You might already be familiar with the broad outlines of how Noyce, Moore and others worked for Robert Shockley, and then left en masse in disgust at his management style. But Berlin furnishes here far more detail than is commonly known. About how Noyce agonised and reluctantly left Shockley.

Likewise, with the later tale of Fairchild Semiconductor and how Noyce and Moore would in turn leave that. This time to found Intel (with Grove). Berlin gives much more detail on this broad outline, that explains the motivations of Noyce and his associates.

Some readers might be amused to see that the CEO of Fairchild resisted handing out stock options to employees, in the grounds that this was "creeping socialism". Which played no small part in the exodus of its best people.

The book describes a Silicon Valley that has vanished.
September 12, 2005

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