Intel was founded in 1968 by Gordon E Moore (a chemist and physcist) and Robert Noyce (a physicist and co-inventor of the Integrated Circuit) when they left Fair child Semiconductor. A number of other Fairchild employees also went on to participate in other Silicon Valley companies. Intel's third employee was Andy Grove a Chemical Engineer, who ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s. Grove is now remembered as the company's key business and strategic leader. By the end of the 1990s, Intel was one of the largest and most successful businesses in the world.
At its founding, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce wanted to name their new company Moore Noyce. The name, however, sounded remarkably similar to moore noise — an ill-suited name for an electronics company, since noise is typically associated with bad interference. They then used the name NM Electronics for almost a year, before deciding to call their company integrated electronics or Intel for short. However, Intel was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to buy the rights for that name at the beginning.
