Beyond Memories #7: Reaching out

As my earlier posts suggest, Andy Grove was in my field of vision from my very first days at Intel onward.  But I was always surprised when I appeared in his sights. I was just one of more than 30,000 employees.  Although I’m confident that I made a contribution to Intel, I am also aware I wasn’t in the same league as the many truly brilliant, more relevant, and highly technical (mostly) men at Intel during those years.   

 Intel women execs circa 1999

So imagine my surprise that he not only remembered me long after my departure from Intel, but reached out in the most touching and surprising way.

My father died in 2004, three years after I left Intel. Within a week, I received a remarkable email from Andy.  I have no idea how he could have even known about my father's’ passing, and I can’t seem to find the note, but I remember the gist.

Sam Konar

Andy didn't just send his condolences, he helped me understand my loss. He wrote that from personal experience, it is devastating to experience the loss of a parent, particularly when it means becoming an orphan. Whatever your age, losing that last parent leaves you truly adrift, anchorless. After not seeing one another in at least three years, he had reached out and provided an especially meaningful encoding of my utter despair.    

Andy had met my father,  just once and briefly, when we were all in New York for an Intel investor event. But did Andy somehow know that my father was a looming presence throughout my life?  Did he know that my father had lived through through the Holocaust, immigrated to a new country and there built a second life, career and family from nothing? Did he identify with my father, who like himself, had always embraced opportunities rather seeing himself a victim of a horrific past?

Perhaps he recognized and remembered him as a fellow “Swimmer” extraordinaire. Or maybe he saw in me the child of a survivor and understood my ground zero. 

In any event, I’ll always remember Andy and my father as two extraordinary individuals, who although often rough and seemingly callous, cared deeply, challenged directly, and navigated with purpose.  

 

Final Lesson from the Grove senior management course at Intel:

• It’s difficult to displace a successful technology brand - it requires a revolutionary breakthrough, or a serious misstep.    Only the paranoid survive.