Only the Paranoid Survive

Massive change is hitting corporate America at a furious and escalating pace, writes Andrew Grove in Only the Paranoid Survive, and businesses that strive hard to keep abreast of the transition will be the only ones that prevail. And Grove should know. As chief executive of Intel, he wrestled with one of the business world's great challenges in 1994 when a flaw in his company's new cornerstone product -- the Pentium processor -- grew into a front-page controversy that seriously threatened its future.

From Publishers Weekly
Keep looking over your shoulder, cautions Grove, president and CEO of Intel Corporation, because the technology that keeps changing the way businesses are run and careers are forged is on the verge of making every person or company in the world either a co-worker or a competitor. And be warned that there's a pattern to the havoc that forces us to regroup whenever we think we have a grip on things. The pattern is based on a series of revolutionary milestones, inevitable and unpredictable, that Grove calls strategic inflection points. They change things. Every significant development from railroads to superstores to computers has been a point of strategic inflection. Businesses and individuals are never the same once these points zero in to alter the status quo. For Intel, a manufacturer of computer works, a strategic inflection point was the transition from memory chips to microprocessors, and a great deal of this book details the way Intel handled this change, including furor that erupted when a minor flaw was discovered in its Pentium processor. Perhaps the quality that lifts this above other business books is its applicability to individuals.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Grove is CEO at Intel, the world's largest producer of microprocessors; the shibboleth that is this book's title has become his trademark. Grove admits that he cannot remember when he first used the phrase, but it has served him well. Different from his High Output Management (1983), an earlier look at the basics of management, which was reissued and slightly revised last year, this new book looks at strategic planning and organizational change. Grove warns that for organizations to survive they must heed "strategic inflection points," which are "full-scale changes in the way business is conducted." He begins with a most personal illustration, his company's controversial handling of the discovery of a flaw in its Pentium processor, but also uses as examples the change in structure of the computer industry from vertical to horizontal and the still uncertain role of the Internet. Grove cautions that not all changes become strategic inflection points and provides guidelines for helping determine whether they will. David Rouse

"This terrific book is a dangerous book. It will make people think."
--Peter Drucker

"This books 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

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.