Computer chip: Bonafide hero of Gulf War
US F-117 bombers took off silently from an air base in Saudi Arabia at the dawn of January 17, 1991. The target was Baghdad.
Mahmud Hossain
A BUET graduate, has over three decades of leadership experience in Bangladesh’s telecom and ICT sectors. He played a key role in introducing mobile technologies in the country. He now serves as a Commissioner at BTRC, following senior leadership roles in several national and multinational industry-leading companies.
Rise of Korea: Enemy's enemy is an ally
Lee Byung-chul was an individual with natural, innate traits for entrepreneurship. He had a magical aura in dealing with business— he was successful in whatever business he took up. In 1938, when the drums of war were rolling out all around, and Korea was under Japanese rule and at war with China, he started his dream company, Samsung.
Intel's turnaround: Where fear becomes motivation
Intel President Andy Grove was a dynamic individual and he had true stories of hard work. He was a refugee from Hungary who had fled the Soviets and the Nazis. Timidity and discipline were his main mantras in running a business. In his famous book 'Only the Paranoid Survive', he wrote: "Fear of competition, fear of bankruptcy, and fear of failure - these are powerful motivators for people to move forward."
Semiconductor: The crude oil of 1980s
On a chilly evening in Palo Alto (a city in California), three legends of the American chip industry—Bob Noyce, Jerry Sanders, and Charlie Spork—gathered in the warm atmosphere of Ming's Chinese Restaurant. Although they once worked shoulder to shoulder at Fairchild Semiconductor, they later became rivals as CEOs of their own companies. But that evening, they had a common as well as massive challenge in front of them: the irresistible rise of Japan. So they agreed that they could no longer remain indifferent to the government's stance; this time they had to approach the government.
Semiconductor war with Japan: Silicon Valley's uphill task
AMD CEO Jerry Sanders entered the chip business belligerently, especially against his old rival Intel. But in the 1980s, instead of Intel, Japan became his new and even more formidable rival.
Silicon Valley crisis: Rise of Japan and rivalry with America
America's semiconductor industry, once the pride of Silicon Valley, suddenly found itself in the midst of fierce competition in the 1980s. Japanese companies were surging like an irresistible wave. One silent but important hero in this story was Hewlett-Packard (HP) executive Richard Anderson. He set strict criteria for which memory chips HP would buy. Therefore, the fate of semiconductor vendors depended on his decisions.