SanDisk Founder Eli Harari 2006 Interview
Silicon Valley Historical Association Silicon Valley Historical Association
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 Published On Jan 29, 2019

Eli Harari discusses the seven long years of San Disk's startup period and how the Internet came along to make the company. He also talks about his early years at Intel and how he advises an energetic employee who wants to go out and start his/her own business. This is a segment from the full unscripted interview.

Eli Harari 2006 Interview
Interview date: June 21, 2006
Interviewers: John McLaughlin, Historian and President of the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association and Leigh Weimers, historian

Interviewer's question:
"Do you have any mentors that you could look back on as a key in your career?"

Transcript (partial):
"At Intel, Gordon Moore was definitely. I did not report directly to him, but I was kind of three levels below him, and attended many, many meetings with him. And I was really impressed by his humility. Really a humble person. Very smart, very gentle, never spoke except when he had something really good to say. Really, really good model of a scientist that … a humble scientist that was very, very good, and always had the big picture, not just the little picture. Andy Grove was a superb manager. Really superb. Most highly disciplined. Could drive you nuts. One time I went in a meeting with Andy, and I said . . . I called the secretary and I said, “I need one hour.” She called back, she said, “Andy will see you for half an hour. He’s going to be in your office at eight.” He showed up at eight. At eight-thirty sharp, he gets up and he goes. And we covered everything in half an hour, of course. Because he made, yes. So, but he was the guy that was . . . we have something good to conserve here. Andy was the guy that said, “We’ll be the last one in Silicon Valley to turn the lights off.” But he was also the guy that had the discipline to get Intel out of the RAM and out of basically all memory, so that they could focus on microprocessors. And that was the most brilliant call that I think anybody has made. Very, very gutsy. Very courageous. Really, really courageous. Because microprocessors, at that time, were nothing. Nothing."

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