Digital Collections

Oral history interview with William H. Davidow

  • 2007-May-08

William H. Davidow begins the interview by describing his early interest in science and technology. After a five-year program and obtaining his MS in electrical engineering at Dartmouth College, Davidow decided to pursue science over business and enrolled in the California Institute of Technology. After obtaining his MS at Caltech and his PhD at Stanford University, Davidow worked at General Electric on peripheral devices. Davidow realized that his talent was in marketing rather than science, and moved on to marketing positions. After working at Hewlett-Packard and Signetics Memory Systems, Davidow moved to Intel and became responsible for marketing of its microprocessor development systems. Eventually Davidow was charged with running the microprocessor division, and embarked on a massive marketing campaign called “Operation Crush.” After the success of Operation Crush Davidow moved to work in Intel’s marketing and sales division; this is the time period during which increasing Japanese competition forced Intel to withdraw from the memory business and focus of microprocessors. Davidow concludes the interview by offering his thoughts on Moore’s Law, interactions and philanthropic work associated with Moore, and the impact Gordon Moore has had on Davidow’s life.

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Davidow_WH_0362_SUPPL.pdf