Nightly Business Report Presents Lasting Leadership: What You Can Learn from the Top 25 Business People of our Times

1. Best of the Best: Inside Andy Grove’s Leadership at Intel

When Andrew S. Grove was a student of engineering at New York’s City College in the mid-1950s, he faced a problem. The one-year scholarship he received as a Hungarian refugee was about to run out, and to speed up his graduation, he needed to take courses in the chemical engineering department. The chairman, Professor Al Xavier Schmidt, taught a crucial course—Chem E 128. Unable to schedule an appointment with Schmidt, Grove, then a young man of 20, waited outside the classroom one day and seized his chance to present his case to the formidable professor.

As Grove spoke, Schmidt, a short man with a fierce moustache, fixed his eyes on the nervous student and subjected him to an interrogation. ...