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Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company Paperback – March 16, 1999
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Under Andy Grove's leadership, Intel became the world's largest chip maker and one of the most admired companies in the world. In Only the Paranoid Survive, Grove reveals his strategy for measuring the nightmare moment every leader dreads--when massive change occurs and a company must, virtually overnight, adapt or fall by the wayside--in a new way.
Grove calls such a moment a Strategic Inflection Point, which can be set off by almost anything: mega-competition, a change in regulations, or a seemingly modest change in technology. When a Strategic Inflection Point hits, the ordinary rules of business go out the window. Yet, managed right, a Strategic Inflection Point can be an opportunity to win in the marketplace and emerge stronger than ever.
Grove underscores his message by examining his own record of success and failure, including how he navigated the events of the Pentium flaw, which threatened Intel's reputation in 1994, and how he has dealt with the explosions in growth of the Internet. The work of a lifetime, Only the Paranoid Survive is a classic of managerial and leadership skills.
- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateMarch 16, 1999
- Dimensions5.47 x 0.64 x 8.23 inches
- ISBN-100385483821
- ISBN-13978-0385483827
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Alfred Sloan's My Years with General Motors."
--Forbes
"This terrific book is dangerous...It will make people think."
--Peter Drucker
"This book is about one super-important concept. You must learn about Strategic Inflection Points, because sooner or later you are going to live through one."
--Steve Jobs, CEO, Pixar Animation Studios
"Andy explains--with modesty that cannot conceal his brilliance, how he has led Intel through changes and challenges that many companies could not cope with...The country will benefit from his vision."
--Reed Hundt, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
From the Inside Flap
Grove calls such a moment a Strategic Inflection Point, which can be set off by almost anything: mega-competition, a change in regulations, or a seemingly modest change in technology. When a Strategic Inflection Point hits, the ordinary rules of business go out the window. Yet, managed right, a Strategic Inflection Point can be an opportunity to win in the marketplace and emerge stronger than ever.
Grove underscores his message by examining his own record of success and failure, including how he navigated the events of the Pentium flaw, which threatened Intel's reputation in 1994, and how he has dealt with the explosions in growth of the Internet. The work of a lifetime, Only the Paranoid Survive is a classic of managerial and leadership skills.
The Currency Paperback edition of Only the Paranoid Survive includes a new chapter about the impact of strategic inflection points on individual careers--how to predict them and how to benefit from them.
From the Back Cover
Grove calls such a moment a Strategic Inflection Point, which can be set off by almost anything: mega-competition, a change in regulations, or a seemingly modest change in technology. When a Strategic Inflection Point hits, the ordinary rules of business go out the window. Yet, managed right, a Strategic Inflection Point can be an opportunity to win in the marketplace and emerge stronger than ever.
Grove underscores his message by examining his own record of success and failure, including how he navigated the events of the Pentium flaw, which threatened Intel's reputation in 1994, and how he has dealt with the explo
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The things I tend to be paranoid about vary. I worry about products getting screwed up, and I worry about products getting introduced prematurely. I worry about factories not performing well, and I worry about having too many factories. I worry about hiring the right people, and I worry about morale slacking off.
And, of course, I worry about competitors. I worry about other people figuring out how to do what we do better or cheaper, and displacing us with our customers.
But these worries pale in comparison to how I feel about what I call strategic inflection points.
I'll describe what a strategic inflection point is a bit later in this book. For now, let me just say that a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.
Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change. They can be caused by competitors but they are more than just competition. They are scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has.
Let's not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to. Companies that begin a decline as a result of its changes rarely recover their previous greatness.
But strategic inflection points do not always lead to disaster. When the way business is being conducted changes, it creates opportunities for players who are adept at operating in the new way. This can apply to newcomers or to incumbents, for whom a strategic inflection point may mean an opportunity for a new period of growth.
You can be the subject of a strategic inflection point but you can also be the cause of one. Intel, where I work, has been both. In the mid-eighties, the Japanese memory producers brought upon us an inflection point so overwhelming that it forced us out of memory chips and into the relatively new field of microprocessors. The microprocessor business that we have dedicated ourselves to has since gone on to cause the mother of all inflection points for other companies, bringing very difficult times to the classical mainframe computer industry. Having both been affected by strategic inflection points and having caused them, I can safely say that the former is tougher.
I've grown up in a technological industry. Most of my experiences are rooted there. I think in terms of technological concepts and metaphors, and a lot of my examples in this book come from what I know. But strategic inflection points, while often brought about by the workings of technology, are not restricted to technological industries.
The fact that an automated teller machine could be built changed banking. If interconnected inexpensive computers can be used in medical diagnosis and consulting, it may change medical care. The possibility that all entertainment content can be stored, transmitted and displayed in digital form may change the entire media industry. In short, strategic inflection points are about fundamental change in any business, technological or not.
We live in an age in which the pace of technological change is pulsating ever faster, causing waves that spread outward toward all industries. This increased rate of change will have an impact on you, no matter what you do for a living. It will bring new competition from new ways of doing things, from corners that you don't expect.
It doesn't matter where you live. Long distances used to be a moat that both insulated and isolated people from workers on the other side of the world. But every day, technology narrows that moat inch by inch. Every person in the world is on the verge of becoming both a coworker and a competitor to every one of us, much the same as our colleagues down the hall of the same office building are. Technological change is going to reach out sooner or later change something fundamental in your business world.
Are such developments a constructive or a destructive force? In my view, they are both. And they are inevitable. In technology, whatever can be done will be done. We can't stop these changes. We can't hide from them. Instead, we must focus on getting ready for them.
The lessons of dealing with strategic inflection points are similar whether you're dealing with a company or your own career.
If you run a business, you must recognize that no amount of formal planning can anticipate such changes. Does that mean you shouldn't plan? Not at all. You need to plan the way a fire department plans: It cannot anticipate where the next fire will be, so it has to shape an energetic and efficient team that is capable of responding to the unanticipated as well as to any ordinary event. Understanding the nature of strategic inflection points and what to do about them will help you safeguard your company's wellbeing. It is your responsibility to guide your company out of harm's way and to place it in a position where it can prosper in the new order. Nobody else can do this but you.
If you are an employee, sooner or later you will be affected by a strategic inflection point. Who knows what your job will look like after cataclysmic change sweeps through your industry and engulfs the company you work for? Who knows if your job will even exist and, frankly, who will care besides you?
Until very recently, if you went to work at an established company, you could assume that your job would last the rest of your working life. But when companies no longer have lifelong careers themselves, how can they provide one for their employees?
As these companies struggle to adapt, the methods of doing business that worked very well for them for decades are becoming history. Companies that have had generations of employees growing up under a no-layoff policy are now dumping 10,000 people onto the street at a crack.
The sad news is, nobody owes you a career. Your career is literally your business. You own it as a sole proprietor. You have one employee: yourself. You are in competition with millions of similar businesses: millions of other employees all over the world. You need to accept ownership of your career, your skills and the timing of your moves. It is your responsibility to protect this personal business of yours from harm and to position it to benefit from the changes in the environment. Nobody else can do that for you.
Having been a manager at Intel for many years, I've made myself a student of strategic inflection points. Thinking about them has helped our business survive in an increasingly competitive environment. I'm an engineer and a manager, but I have always had an urge to teach, to share with others what I've figured out for myself. It is that same urge that makes me want to share the lessons I've learned.
This book is not a memoir. I am involved in managing a business and deal daily with customers and partners, and speculate constantly about the intentions of competitors. In writing this book, I sometimes draw on observations I have made through such interactions. But these encounters didn't take place with the notion that they would make it into any public arena. They were business discussions that served a purpose for both Intel and others' businesses, and I have to respect that. So please forgive me if some of these stories are camouflaged in generic descriptions and anonymity. It can't be helped.
What this book is about is the impact of changing rules. It's about finding your way through uncharted territories. Through examples and reflections on my and others' experiences, I hope to raise your awareness of what it's like to go through cataclysmic changes and toprovide a framework in which to deal with them.
As I said, this book is also about careers. As business are created on new foundations or are restructured to operate in a new environment, careers are broken or accelerated. I hope this book will give you some ideas of how you can shepherd your career through these difficult times.
Let's start by parachuting into the middle of a strategic inflection point, when something is changing in a big way, when something is different, yet when you're so busy trying to survive that the significance of the change only becomes clear in retrospect. Painful as it is, let me relive the story of a problem that Intel had with our flagship device, the Pentium processor, in the fall of 1994.
Product details
- Publisher : Crown Currency; First Edition (March 16, 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0385483821
- ISBN-13 : 978-0385483827
- Item Weight : 7.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.47 x 0.64 x 8.23 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #26,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #51 in Company Business Profiles (Books)
- #220 in Entrepreneurship (Books)
- #351 in Business Management (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author
Andrew S. Grove emigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1956. He participated in the founding of Intel, and became its president in 1979 and chief executive officer in 1987. He was chosen as Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1997. In 1998, he stepped down as CEO of Intel, but continues as chairman of the board. Grove also teaches at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Photo by World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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“Only the Paranoid Survive” was published in 1996 during Andy Grove’s tenure as CEO of Intel. At the time Intel was reaping the benefits of their strategic shift from memory chips to microprocessors. Mr. Grove describes the challenges that Intel faced when it became apparent to him that the profitability and viability of their core memory chip business was threatened by lower cost competitors. The situation exemplified what Mr. Grove terms a “strategic inflection point”, when a fundamental change in the business environment forces a company to make substantial changes to survive. Mr. Grove uses his experience navigating the transformation from memory chips to microprocessors to illustrate the multifaceted challenges posed by strategic inflection points. Further he explains how to mobilize an organization and lead through the uncertainty (referred to as “the valley of death”) to achieve transformation.
Chapter 9 discusses the growth of the Internet and considers if the Internet will pose a strategic inflection point for Intel’s business. Mr. Grove anticipated the potential for the Internet to transform the media and telecommunications industries, and the opportunities that the Internet would create for Intel’s business (for example the need for more powerful microprocessors to enable PCs to replace televisions).
The last Chapter was written in 1999 after Mr. Grove stepped down from his CEO role. This chapter applies the strategic inflection point concept to career management, asserting that the reader is the CEO of their career, and urging vigilance and preparedness to effectively respond to changes in the business environment that could threaten their career. This chapter resonated with my own experience working in technology-based industries for the past 30 years.
Mr. Grove’s clear and candid writing style makes this book an enjoyable and enlightening read. His ability to analyze a problem holistically and draw on diverse perspectives from across his organization is well demonstrated. The need for clear messaging and decisive action is also emphasized.
I found “Only the Paranoid Survive” to be an engaging and informative read, still relevant twenty-five years after publication.
In the book, the author relies on his experience with Intel to explain exactly how to prepare for change, embrace it, pivot and then re-emerge more vigorous than before. Yet, while this book superficially seems to have relevance to the business world alone, any scrupulous reader will quickly realize that all of the managerial and leadership strategies apply to crisis-management in general. Thus, the wisdom contained in these pages relates to anyone (or group) leading others through turbulent times. The potential areas of application are far-reaching (for example): navigating a pandemic due to a novel pathogen, political revolution, or war.
Ultimately, evergreen advice that likely will prove more valuable with time as the world becomes more and more tumultuous.
The book repeats the same story over and over again and one has to wonder what happened to the editor. I always wondered why Intel was obnoxious to work with and why their people argued for no reason, and this book answers that question. Bad manners are encouraged (required) and is core to every meeting-even the obvious must be argued at Intel by mandate. It is a toxic culture and it is no surprise that the topic of employees quitting comes up in Andrew's books.
The lesson the author leaves out is that you can get through the desert if you have more money than the other guy and luck is on your side. An underfunded and incompetent competitor helps a lot too. Intel also did a good job in sales and marketing which is also not covered, but was the core to beating their competitors.
The partnership with Microsoft, Intel and the PC were also core to Intel success/survival story. Had IBM not selected the Intel 8088 for the PC, or if IBM did not open source the hardware/BIOS and Microsoft sold the OS cheaply and broadly, Intel would probably not exist today. Better processors were available, but Intel lucked into the IBM PC ecosystem.
Don't underestimate timing, a big bucket of cash to work with, and a lot of luck as well as a ruthless culture centered on beating people up.
Top reviews from other countries
By- Andrew S. Grove
If you’re wrong, you will die. But most companies don’t die because they are wrong; most dies because they don’t commit themselves. They fritter away their momentum and their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is in standing still.Only paranoid survive is a classic lesson in leadership skills that every manager and investor will benefit from. The most powerful concept of the book in my opinion is the following concept from Andy Grove: If you see someone coming up with a new idea or a completing product, then you should ask yourself the question: If this is a thread to the business if this get 10 times bigger or better or faster than the probability of this actually happening is very big and you must have to do something about it. And fast.The final chapter in the book deals with how Grove thought about the internet. One should remind that this book was written in 1997, but it is fascinating how Grove already identified industries which would be badly affected by the Internet. He already was aware that for instance a lot of AD revenues would flow from print into the Internet. One should not forget that this book was written a year before Google was even founded !!!!
In my opinion this is truly great book.I believe both Investor and managers can profit a lot from this book. I do like first person perspective books a lot, especially if can compare them against articles and theories about the same company written by other people.