While Noyce’s ideas about technical management sound all too enlightened to be part of anything called big business, they worked well at Fairchild and then at Noyce’s next creation, Intel. Intel was started, in fact, because Noyce couldn’t get Fairchild’s eastern owners to accept the idea that stock options should be a part of compensation for all employees, not just for management. He wanted to tie everyone, from janitors to bosses, into the overall success of the company, and spreading the wealth around seemed the way to go.

This management style still sets the standard for every computer, software, and semiconductor company in the Valley today, where office doors are a rarity and secretaries hold shares in their company’s stock. Some companies follow the model well, and some do it poorly, but every CEO still wants to think that the place is being run the way Bob Noyce would have run it.