Noyce’s calculations led Higashi and Pires to redesign one part of the transmission, a change that made the output more uniform by a factor of two. The pair eventually licensed the transmission to a manufacturer who wanted to use it for diesel truck transmissions.
Higashi offered Noyce stock in the startup in exchange for his help. But Noyce declined, saying he didn’t need any more money and he had not messed around with the math because he had planned to make an investment or take stock in the company. (Higashi thinks Noyce’s motivation was the desire for a very cool bicycle.) Noyce was also concerned that if other people knew he was making an investment, they would assume he believed the company was likely to make money. But Noyce had not looked into the market for the device or conducted any formal due diligence on its prospects. Noyce did, however, tell Higashi, “I’m here to support you if you ever get in trouble. If you need a helping hand [an emergency infusion of money], be sure to call me.”
“It gave me a great deal of confidence to know that I had an angel back there that I could count on,” Higashi says. “It was easier to move forward knowing that he wasn’t going to let us fail. He would help me out if we needed it.”61
BUT THE PLEASANT HOURS Noyce spent in his basement or at his college reunion were stolen from his extremely demanding job at SEMATECH. His life had changed dramatically. Before he moved to Austin, Noyce’s days had been filled with a busy-ness of his own choosing, anchored by work he enjoyed and punctuated with evenings with friends of long standing. Now he was working 60- or 70-hour weeks and often did not pause for a weekend. His calendars from his tenure at SEMATECH are so crammed with activity that they are nearly illegible. In a private letter to Grant Gale, Ann Bowers said that Noyce was finding the SEMATECH job a “challenge”—and not a welcome one. “It’s a real kick in the side of the head [for Bob] to go back to managing,” she wrote. Pictures taken during his SEMATECH tenure show him looking more exhausted than at any other point in his life.62
His marriage sustained him, but other pressures outside SEMATECH drained Noyce. He had made an investment in an oil and gas outfit that was not doing well. The increasingly desperate owner was calling him multiple times a day to ask for advice and more money. His youngest daughter had moved to Austin, and after rejecting Bowers’s attempts to help her find an apartment, she had joined a religious community with her young son. The community’s leader was a charismatic, heavily tattooed former motorcycle gang leader who called himself “Brother Joseph.” When Noyce and Bowers visited, Brother Joseph insisted on being present at all times to monitor their conversations.
AND YET, as was so often the case with Noyce, the parts of his life that were not difficult were fantastic. He continued to be showered with recognition. President Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Technology in 1987. Two years later, George H.W. Bush inducted him into the Business Hall of Fame.
The singular honor came in February 1990, when Noyce and Jack Kilby shared the first Charles Stark Draper Award—the so-called Nobel Prize of Engineering—for their work on the integrated circuit. President George H. W. Bush presented the award, sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering, in a black-tie ceremony held at the State Department. Paraphrasing Churchill, the president said of the integrated circuit, “Never has something so small done so much for so many.” General Electric chairman and CEO Jack Welch, who chaired the National Academy of Engineering, asked, “How far do you have to reach to find a more profoundly transformational breakthrough? Electricity? Steam power? The wheel? … The limits of the invention to which they gave birth are literally the limits of the human imagination.” Noyce, who believed the purpose of the award was “to inspire others to make their contributions to society,” invited Grant Gale to attend the ceremony as his guest and thanked him for his “inspiration” in his speech. Gale later wrote to Noyce wishing for “a better way in the English language to convey appreciation and affection than a mere ‘thank you.’”63
By the time Noyce returned from the Draper Award ceremonies, SEMATECH’s focus on supplier relations had begun to show some results. The consortium increased its funding for outside research from $84 million to almost $140 million, mainly for projects to improve existing equipment and develop next-generation equipment. SEMATECH also developed technology “road maps” that detailed member companies’ goals and timetables for developing next-generation technology. By June, executives from 63 equipment suppliers had attended one-on-one management meetings with manufacturing executives. SEMATECH had awarded 22 joint-development contracts to develop next-generation tools and materials and 13 equipment-improvement program contracts to improve existing equipment. One year earlier, only three contracts, total, had been awarded.64
The new focus had generated some opposition, as well. Two companies were unhappy enough with the decision to begin planning to withdraw from SEMATECH. And several suppliers alleged that SEMATECH was playing favorites with its research contracts. The consortium’s decision to grant its member companies first dibs on any equipment or materials supported by a SEMATECH contract enraged manufacturers who were not members. After all, these manufacturers paid taxes and thus supported SEMATECH via the federal government’s contribution. Why should they be discriminated against?
But even with these problems, SEMATECH was far better off with a clear mission than it had been before Noyce arrived. Noyce himself seemed pleased with his work, at one point proudly telling a meeting of supplier company executives, “We’re all customers and we’re all suppliers.” He had taken the “public startup” beyond the startup phase and past the immediate dangers that had threatened its very existence. It was time for SEMATECH to focus on implementation, and Noyce knew he was not the man to lead it through this effort. In April 1990 Noyce began planning to leave SEMATECH at the end of the year. He confidentially asked the consortium’s board to begin a search for his replacement.65
He had no immediate plans for the future. He was looking forward to spending a few months recuperating from the SEMATECH frenzy at a ranch he and Bowers had decided to buy on the California coast near Gordon Moore’s hometown of Pescadero. (They had sold the Carmel Valley ranch before moving to Texas.) As Bowers put it, “Bob was up for hanging out for a while. He was so busy, so pushed, that he hadn’t had a lot of time to think about what was coming next.”66
ON MAY 10, Noyce—along with Jack Kilby, transistor inventor John Bardeen, composer Leonard Bernstein, medical researchers Lloyd Conover (who discovered tetracycline) and Gertrude Elion (who synthesized several key leukemia and herpes drugs), Polaroid founder Edwin Land, author James A. Michener, director Steven Spielberg, and songwriters Steven Sondheim and Stevie Wonder—received a “Lifetime Achievement Medal” during the bicentennial celebration of the Patent Act.
Perhaps two weeks later, Noyce drove to the religious community where his youngest daughter lived. It was his first trip to the community alone, and when he met with his daughter—and Brother Joseph, of course—she mentioned that she planned to educate her son not at a traditional school, but within the community. When Noyce said that he did not think this was a good idea, Brother Joseph cut him off. “Who do you think you are, giving advice on parenting?” he asked. He told Noyce that a man who was never home for his children and had been unfaithful to his wife had no right to tell his daughter anything about raising children. Then he announced that the meeting was over.67
The accusations left Noyce profoundly shaken. He did not like to think about his marriage to Betty Noyce and its effects on their children. As soon as Noyce arrived home, Ann Bowers could see something was wrong. He was so upset that he could barely tell her what had happened. Bowers was furious, not only at what had been said, but at herself for not accompanying Noyce.
A few days later, Noyce picked up the phone and called Paul Hwoschinsky, his Callanish Fund partner who had helped him through the divorce and administered his children’s trusts. Hwoschinsky had known Noyce for more than 25 years. He had worked as Noyce�
��s assistant at Fairchild and spent many days with the family on the ski slopes and at the house on Loyola Drive. He was perhaps the only person apart from Ann Bowers who bridged the private and public sides of Noyce’s life.
“Well, hi,” Noyce said.
“My God, where are you?” asked Hwoschinsky. It was midnight on the West Coast.
“Oh, I’m in Austin.” It was two in the morning in Texas.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, I just thought I’d call you up.”
“Bob, you didn’t just call me up. There’s a reason you called me, and what is the reason, because if I can be present to you, I will.”
Noyce did not answer. Instead, he laughed a hoarse little laugh. Hwoschinsky knew that nervous chuckle, knew “there was something behind it.”
Both men sat quiet for a moment. Then Hwoschinsky said, “Okay, I will choose a subject for our conversation.”
“Fine.”
“The issue is smoking and you’ve got to give it up or you’re going to die,” Hwoschinsky said. “I’m not going to lecture you … but what is it that any of your friends can do to be present to you? Any of us, myself included.”
Noyce did not have much to say. “It was such a strange conversation,” Hwoschinsky recalls more than a dozen years later. “I don’t know to this day [why he called]. Honest to God, I don’t know. I don’t know as he knows. I don’t really know. It was a real mystery. I could get to a feeling level. … I knew there was something really important happening, and I couldn’t get it out of him.”68
Why did Noyce call Hwoschinsky, with whom he had not had contact for several years? Was he upset about the conversation with Brother Joseph? Did he sense, as Hwoschinsky later suspected, some premonition of his death, which would come in less than two weeks? Certainly Noyce’s actions were not those of a man who thought he would die soon. His calendar was full well into the summer. He had plans to trade in his Citation for a new, even higher performance jet in just a few days. And in connection with that purchase, he had undergone a battery of medical tests, administered as part of a full physical, all of which he passed. But the stress Noyce faced at SEMATECH was so great that many people who worked with him there think it contributed to his death. So perhaps he did sense something.
At the end of May, Noyce delivered a speech on SEMATECH in Silicon Valley. It would be his last visit. When he learned Noyce was coming to town, Steve Jobs, who wanted his fiancée to meet Noyce, invited him to his home for dinner. The three stayed up talking until early the next morning. Then Noyce flew back to Austin.69
Upon his return, Noyce was surprised to learn that SEMATECH had declared June 1, 1990, “Bob Noyce Day.” It was not a good-bye party—almost no one at the consortium knew that he was planning to leave. Instead, the celebration was inspired by a comment that an equipment supplier had made to the San Jose Mercury News. Americans need to “change their idols,” he said. He nominated Bob Noyce “for the pedestal.” SEMATECH made up t-shirts printed with the quote, Noyce’s picture, and the phrase “Bob Noyce, teen idol.” A photo from the event shows Noyce on the SEMATECH lawn, grinning ear-to-ear, surrounded by women wearing the t-shirts.70
This is the last image of Noyce. Two days after photo was taken, he lay down for a rest after his regular morning swim. As he slept, he suffered a massive heart attack that took his life. The oil field owner who had been hounding Noyce for months called while the paramedics were in his bedroom vainly trying to revive him. The date was June 3, 1990. Noyce was 62 years old.
Conclusion
More than 1,000 people attended memorial services for Noyce in Austin. In Japan, hundreds came to a service honoring his memory. Another 2,000 attended ceremonies in San Jose, officiated by Noyce’s brother Gaylord. At the end of that June afternoon in Silicon Valley, which the city officially declared “Bob Noyce Day,” hundreds of red and white balloons were released into the clear sky. Then the roar of an airplane grew audible. Moments later, Noyce’s newest Cessna Citation jet—the one that he had never had a chance to fly—soared past, a mere ten stories off the ground.
President George H. W. Bush phoned Ann Bowers to offer his personal condolences. Roughly two dozen members of Congress, from both sides of the aisle, entered their thoughts on Noyce into the Congressional Record. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney called him “a national treasure.” White House science advisor D. Allan Bromley said he “was one of the very few in his generation, worldwide, who truly deserved the appellation of ‘genius.’” Obituaries from newspapers around the world remembered Noyce as “the most powerful personal force in the electronics industry,” who helped to “create an industrial revolution” and “transform the twentieth century.” The San Jose Mercury News ran a special four-page tribute, filled with dozens of reminiscences from readers who ranged from a bank teller who had handled his check to buy a plane to those closest to him—Ann Bowers, Gordon Moore, and Grant Gale. Apple Computer’s tribute to Noyce read, in part, “He was one of the giants in this valley who provided the model and inspiration for everything we wanted to become. He was the ultimate inventor. The ultimate rebel. The ultimate entrepreneur.”1
Many people who knew Noyce described him as a “Renaissance man.” How else to define someone who was an inventor, a scientist, an industrialist, a singer, and an explorer—all at the same time? Yet Noyce’s life was rooted not in fifteenth-century Italy; but in a distinctively American exuberance. “Allons! Whoever you are come travel with me,” wrote Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass.
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines.
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
In the last interview he granted, Noyce was asked what he would do if he were “emperor” of the United States. He said that he would, among other things, “make sure we are preparing our next generation to flourish in a high-tech age. And that means education of the lowest and the poorest, as well as at the graduate school level.” In keeping with these beliefs, most of Noyce’s estate was channeled into a foundation, chaired by Ann Bowers, to provide grants to support “initiatives designed to produce significant improvement in the academic achievement of public school students in math, science, and early literacy in grades K–12.” To date, Noyce Foundation grants have totaled more than $65 million.2
Many of the companies, organizations, and causes with which Noyce involved himself flourish today. In 2004, roughly $30 billion worth of microprocessors—the little chips Noyce once promoted with missionary zeal before incredulous audiences—were sold around the world. The largest company in this market is Intel, whose microprocessors drive more than 80 percent of the personal computers on the market today. Caere, Noyce’s teenage startup, was sold to Scansoft in early 2000 for roughly $140 million.
The electronics industry, today the largest industry in the United States, is built upon integrated circuits of a complexity that Noyce never could have imagined in 1959, when he sketched out his ideas for the device. At that point he thought that maybe, someday, 100 components might be printed together as a circuit. The current generation of microprocessors contains 100 million components. In 2003, the semiconductor industry manufactured roughly 90 million transistors for every human on the planet; by 2010, this number should be 1 billion transistors.3
The Semiconductor Industry Association, the trade association that Noyce helped to found, today has some 90 member companies and a long record of legislative successes. The organization named its most prestigious award—“the industry’s highest honor for leadership”—after Noyce. His great concern that Japan might permanently supplant the United States as home to the world’s dominant semiconductor industry has not materialized. Today American firms account for 48 percent of the $166 billion world market
for semiconductors; the Japanese account for 27 percent. (A rising industry in China and small East Asian countries accounts for the balance of the market.) Indeed, the perceived threat has diminished so dramatically that SEMATECH, founded in a flush of nationalistic save-our-industry fervor, now has member companies from five countries, including Japan.
Grinnell College named both its science center and its prize in computer science for Noyce. Intel’s headquarters is today called the Robert Noyce Building, and the company sponsors three university fellowships in his honor. The IEEE has a Robert N. Noyce medal for exceptional contributions to the microelectronics industry. The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose has a Noyce building. The National Science Foundation dedicated its fortieth anniversary symposium to him and in 2002 established a Robert Noyce Scholarship Program to “encourage talented science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors and professionals to become K–12 mathematics and science teachers.” To date NSF has awarded more than $19 million to support approximately 1,700 new teachers under this program.4
But Noyce’s most enduring legacy cannot be measured in buildings, accolades, awards, or honors, not in dollars earned or given away, nor in stock price or market share. It cannot be etched in silicon or printed on microchips. There is an informal sort of generational succession in Silicon Valley that places Noyce near the top of the family tree. A few years ago, for example, the founders of Google asked Steve Jobs for advice and mentorship in the same way Jobs had come to Noyce when Apple was young. And even when there is no such explicit tie back to Noyce—even if the latest generation of entrepreneurs do not know his name—his influence endures in a set of ideals that have become an indelible part of American high-tech culture: knowledge trumps hierarchy, every idea can be taken farther, new and interesting is better than established and safe, go for broke or don’t go at all. There are countless other influences of course, but Noyce’s vision is embedded deep in the eye of the swirling energy that is Silicon Valley, his spirit quietly urging anyone who might listen to “go off and do something wonderful.”
The Man Behind the Microchip Page 46