The relationship between what Michael Malone calls “the Intel trinity” in his 2014 book of the same name, especially between the more abrasive and focused Grove and the kind and charismatic Noyce, was sometimes fraught. Complementary skills often involve clashing personalities. One function of a company like Intel is that it forces people with varying traits and goals to collaborate on the same project. Just as an attractive force balances a repulsive force in an atom, such complementarity creates brand-new materials that couldn’t stably exist in any other format.
