An ultimately unsurprising contribution to business literature.
Tedlow (Business Administration/Harvard; Giants of Enterprise, not reviewed) profiles Intel guru Andy Grove.
Grove’s life story is, indeed, the American dream: He immigrated to the US in the 1950s, a penniless refugee, and landed a job at Intel, where he eventually served as CEO, overseeing a terrific increase in sales, profits and market capitalization. His Silicon Valley leadership earned him, among other plaudits, the spot as Time’s Man of the Year in 1997. Now a quasi-retired “advisor” to Intel, Grove oversees his family’s philanthropic foundation. Here, Tedlow addresses some of his subject’s more controversial opinions—such as his belief that stock options should not be expensed, because without the incentive provided by stock options, American technological ingenuity would suffer. The author is willing to criticize Grove; he suggests that Intel didn’t benefit from Grove’s intransigence about expensing stock options, and that Grove’s judgment may have been clouded. Even so, Tedlow is clearly an admirer, likening Grove to Benjamin Franklin (both liked to write and refused to let age slow them down), Andrew Carnegie (both immigrants’ lives are rags-to-riches stories) and Odysseus (who, like Grove, was a born leader who refused to accept defeat). But for all these high-flying comparisons, Tedlow’s evaluation of Grove is pedestrian—the central idea seems to be that the key to Grove’s leadership is his willingness to adapt and change. Tedlow explains the technologies like the Pentium processor in terms a layman can follow. But he too frequently falls into cliché: “The future was limitless,” etc. Despite the large body of writing about Grove—including his own memoir, Swimming Across (2001)—Tedlow contends, rightly, that an aura of mystery surrounds the man. What makes him tick? How does he make his business decisions? This biography, based on unfettered access to the subject and those close to him, is engaging and informative, but never fully dispels the mystery.
An ultimately unsurprising contribution to business literature.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2006
ISBN: 1-59184-139-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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