By December of 1972, Noyce’s optimism had proven well founded. Intel was entirely debt free and had more than doubled revenues and tripled profits. Just one year later, when Intel’s fifth anniversary coincided with a boom in the industry, the company’s revenues and profits again tripled, and so, too, did the number of its employees and its manufacturing space. Intel’s pretax profit margin was a remarkable 40 percent (25 percent after tax).6
