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For now, Grove isn't going anywhere. He is as engaged as anyone else at the company. After 8 on most nights, after even the diehards have cleared out of the office, Grove's cubicle still glows against the window. Rock, who has known Grove for 30 years, puts the persistent passion down to a calm inner knowledge. "Andy has been exactly the same person. He hasn't changed. That's the beauty of it. He has no airs." That Grove could remain still in the midst of such a turbulent business is perhaps the best explanation of his success. Other companies chased fads or indulged their arrogance. Grove remained constant.
And vibrant. Grove is filled with laughter and an eager joy. He is a compassionate man, with a face that seems most relaxed when it's tucked into a smile. His younger daughter recalls her disco-theme wedding reception last summer, when her dad grabbed her cape and a friend's crown and headed out to the dance floor with a big Grove grin. There, in front of family and friends, was Andras Grof in a silver-lame cape and rhinestone tiara groving to Le Freak as around the world, Intel plants silently cranked away to his rhythm. What were the odds of that?
Back in his school days, when Grove was studying fluid dynamics, he might have been able to tell you. As a young chemist, Grove had to master probability theory--it was the only way to predict how some molecules and atoms will behave. One of the ideas that holds probability theory together is that it is possible to understand the odds of an enormously complex event as a series of yes-or-no questions. The theory works by taking the most complicated series of events and boiling them into binary choices: either this can happen or that can happen. This is called the binomial theory.
The binomial theory can, for instance, tell you the odds of one man flipping a coin 8,000 times and getting 8,000 heads--about 1 in 10 2400[exponent]. It's a big number, but figure the odds on this: a young Hungarian boy either survives scarlet fever or he doesn't. He either goes to a concentration camp or he doesn't. He either escapes the Russians or he doesn't. Grove, who believes he is good, also suspects he's been amazingly lucky. And if you're trying to understand why his power hasn't bred arrogance, it's because most of the time, when he takes a look at his life, Andy Grove thinks he's the guy who flipped heads 8,000 times in a row.
"Lucky or good?" It's one of the first questions you'll get from Grove. He was lucky enough to escape Hungary; good enough to make it to the U.S. Lucky enough to find ccny; good enough to graduate first in his class. Lucky enough to join Intel; good enough to lead it to the top. Lucky enough to marry Eva and have two healthy daughters; good enough to raise them, dancing and smiling, into beautiful American women. That's the kind of life it's been. Andrew Steven Grove, TIME's Man of the Year 1997: lucky, good, paranoid.
--With reporting by Daniel Eisenberg/New York
For more information, visit TIME's Man of the Year Website at time.com