Tim Jackson - Inside Intel

Until there were products to sell, Bob Graham had little to do. The company did not have enough spare cash to hire salesmen to sit around and wait for the engineers to do their job. So Graham identified a candidate who could serve as his second-in-command in the sales and marketing division when the time came – and in the meantime, he amused himself fishing.

Setting his alarm clock to wake him several hours before dawn, Graham would tiptoe out of his modest house in Saratoga so as to avoid waking his wife. Then he would climb into the old Ford Mustang that he had bought from Bob Noyce, and roar up a deserted Highway 101 all the way to San Francisco, where he would park as close as possible to the Golden Gate Bridge. There, waiting under a streetlamp, he would find Gordon Moore in his overalls and work boots. With the motor engine burbling softly beneath the dark wash, the two men would ease Moore’s fishing boat out under the bridge and towards the grounds beyond the bay where salmon were plentiful.

For a scientist, Moore seemed to show scant interest in the state of repair of his craft. Sometimes he had to scrape the rust off the spark-plugs with his pocket knife. Sometimes, the boat’s rudimentary radio would cut out, leaving the fishermen cut off from the outside world. But on one occasion a more serious problem arose. The part of the expedition that required the most skill was traversing what the local fishermen called the ‘Potato Patch’, a narrow channel bordered with rocks just beyond the bridge that led to the fishing grounds beyond. One morning, just as they were halfway through the Potato Patch, Graham noticed water slopping around in the bilges of the boat.

‘Oh,’ said Moore absent-mindedly. ‘I must have forgotten to switch the bilge-pump on.’ He disappeared for a few seconds, and Graham began to hear the sound of the electric pump groaning into action. Thirty seconds later, however, the water level was still rising.

‘The pump!’ yelled Graham. ‘It’s not working!’ Frantically, he and Moore grabbed whatever receptacles were closest to hand, and began to throw bucketfuls of water overboard. Yet as fast as they bailed water out, more seemed to come in. While Graham continued to empty the buckets as fast as he could – splash, splash, splash, splash, splash – Moore went to inspect the drain fittings.

Ten minutes later the problem was solved. The hole in the boat that Moore had discovered was plugged with an old oily rag, and the two friends lay back, exhausted by their efforts. As the sun rose over the city behind them, they celebrated their survival into a new day with an early-morning beer.

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