Only the Paranoid Survive (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Business; 1 edition (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385482582
• ISBN-13: 978-0385482585
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #79,578 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONLY THOSE WHO ABOLISH "STALLED" THINKING SURVIVE, February 15, 1999

By A Customer

Business leaders tend to develop a plan and direction for their business that "feels" right and allows them to grow. Seldom do they look around to see if a much better solution is right under their noses. Having grasped the first, most obvious alternative, other alternatives fade into the background. This book suggests that companies should use discomfort with their current position to cause that look around for a better alternative. Like the boy who bent over to pick up a dime while his father looked around first and picked up twenty dollars at the same time, this gives you the chance to be many times more successful. In this book, Intel lost the handle on how to compete in commodity memory chips. An emphasis on profitability caused the organization to self-direct itself into doing more with microprocessors. Because of the inherent value-added being higher in microprocessors, this almost-accidental turn of fate was a wonderful blessing in disguise. Intel's leadership abolished the memory chip business long after the company had abandoned the business. This is one of the few books that appreciates that being satisfied with what one has today is the primary enemy of progress. The lessons of this book could be improved by further considering other ways to get organizations to notice better alternatives than just relying on fear of competition, technological trends and so forth. The concept of "strategic inflection points" developed in this book is a useful addition to the search for better alternatives. Dr. Grove made our company's list of outstanding CEOs 5 of the last 8 years for his outstanding performance in stock-price improvement. That is a powerful testament to the value of these concepts.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Practical Guide For Eliminating Stalls From Complacency, January 24, 1999

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Complacency is one of the biggest enemies of any organization, but especially for successful ones like Intel. ONLY THE PARANOID SURVIVE provides two powerful observations that will help anyone who reads this book: (1) That changes are lurking out there that need immediate attention inside your organization and (2) That you must be constantly vigilant for large discontinuous changes (such as those driven by microprocessors, Intel's main product). Having the perspective of someone who has been both the beneficiary and the target of discontinuous change, Dr. Grove's lessons become all the more real. At first, I thought this book was a little overdone; but upon reflection, I feel that complacency is probably best overcome by paranoia in the absence of the management process to locate, anticipate, create and adapt to externally-driven discontinuous changes. We cite this book in our own book about how to be more successful, because we believe it is an important work. Please read this book, and take its lessons seriously. But have fun while you are being paranoid!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiring guide to get through radical change!, April 10, 1999

By	S. S. Spector - See all my reviews

This book is an inspirational and thought provoking guide for those that have never been through what Grove classifies as a Strategic Inflection Point. As a leader in an industry going through massive change, I find this book to be one of the few that I will refer back to time and time again.