Intel Corporate Venturing

8 Pages Posted: 30 May 2017

See all articles by S. Venkataraman

S. Venkataraman

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Nicholas Dew

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Abstract

This case is ideal for use in courses on innovation, entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, and strategy. It challenges students to think about the conditions necessary for creating a vibrant entrepreneurial culture and climate within a large firm as a newly appointed VP works to get a highly successful company to embrace entrepreneurship and innovation. The VP considers his central mission is creating a robust portfolio of new initiatives within the organization. After a year of such activities, all efforts have not shown good results. The case challenges students to think about the conditions necessary for creating a vibrant entrepreneurial culture and climate within a large firm. Ideal for use in courses on: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Corporate Venturing, Strategy.

Excerpt

UVA-ENT-0011

INTEL CORPORATE VENTURING

Peter Hake, senior vice president of Intel's Growing Green Businesses project, took a moment before entering his weekly strategy meeting. As he quietly collected his thoughts, it occurred to Hake that wherever he went at Intel, he seemed to see people being “chased by bears.” Hake chuckled to himself and thought: if you are being chased by a bear, you really have to run faster than the other guy to ensure that he will be eaten instead of you. The same point had been made by Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, whose management philosophy seemed to have served the company so well for many years. Grove had always explicitly stressed, “If the competition is chasing you (and they always are—this is why ‘only the paranoid survive'), you only get out of the valley of death by outrunning the people who are after you.”

The Company

Intel was founded in 1968 by Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and Andy Grove. The company's original focus was on computer memory chips, and the firm experienced extremely rapid growth after going public in 1971. In 1978, Intel introduced its first microprocessor, the 8086, and the company's microprocessor strategy fed the growth in personal computing throughout the 1980s. Faced with the commoditization of the memory-chip business in the mid-1980s, Intel made a strategic leap of faith and exited that business in 1985, “betting the farm” instead on its technological leadership in microprocessors.

From 1987, the company's visibility accelerated rapidly under the leadership of the people-oriented Andy Grove (president and CEO) and the technically savvy Gordon Moore (chairman). In 1991, it began its Intel Inside marketing program, in which it cooperated with PC makers in a major advertising program to build the Intel brand. This marketing strategy proved enormously successful and made the company the largest co-op advertiser in the world. The year 1993 saw the introduction of the now ubiquitous Pentium chip, the fifth-generation microprocessor spawned by Intel technology.

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Keywords: entrepreneurs, innovation management, corporate venturing

Suggested Citation

Venkataraman, S. and Dew, Nicholas, Intel Corporate Venturing. Darden Case No. UVA-ENT-0011, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2974242 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2974242

S. Venkataraman (Contact Author)

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States

Nicholas Dew

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States

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