Grove wanted to be a journalist, but he discovered that journalistic success depended on the whims of political correctness, and he decided to enter a field where subjectivity would not affect judgments about his work; he chose to study chemistry. Grove immigrates from Austria to the United States, where he lived in the Bronx with an aunt and uncle who had immigrated in the 1930s. Grove attended City College of New York from 1957 to 1960, spending his evenings poring over his class notes with a dictionary to understand difficult English words. When he was not in class or studying, he worked as a busboy. After graduation, he and his wife moved to California, where Grove attended Stanford University, focusing on fluid mechanics and earning his PhD in only three years. Grove's hard work and his keen, creative mind earned him a reputation for brilliance and gave him his pick of jobs with elite American technology companies. He chose to go to work for Fairchild Semiconductor Research Laboratory.
When Grove joined Intel in 1968, he was put to work managing the engineers who researched and developed semiconductors for Intel. He was interested in every detail of the operations of Intel, regardless of whether it was directly related to his management of engineers. He spent long hours studying the math and experimental science behind Intel's products.
Almost immediately evident was his passion for orderliness. He expected every part of Intel's laboratories and "fabs" to be clean, earning the nickname "Mr. Clean." He wanted statistics on everything his employees did, forcing them to work until midnight to record every detail. They had to do every calculation by hand and slide rule. Grove used the statistics to monitor trends in productivity. This practice prov ...