Andy Grove

Harvard Business School professor Richard S. Tedlow tells the life of Andy Grove, who ran Intel as chairman and chief executive while it grew explosively. Born András István Gróf, a Hungarian Jew, in 1936, Grove survived the Nazis and then the Soviet invasion of his country, and fled to America at twenty. He studied engineering and reached Silicon Valley in time to become Intel's third employee, proving an even better manager than engineer. Grove gave Tedlow access to his private papers, long interviews and his friends and business associates, and the biography examines how he attacked hard problems and led others, along with his relationships with Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce.

Barack Obama's presidential reading includes it, according to a list of every book he recommended in office.