Great Mentors Of 9 Famous Tech CEOs

Bangalore: History’s greatest minds have always been carved under the influence of a maestro, who is more of a godfather than just a mentor. The scenario would perfectly fit for the tech industry, which had chewed out many visionaries like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. But little did we know about these teacher-student relationships as it’s harder to see them together in public. Here is a list of such most famous tech CEOs and their mentors.

#9 Steve Jobs

Mentor: Andy Grove, Co-founder of Intel

We know Steve Jobs was an inspiration for thousands of young entrepreneurs. But the man who inspired Jobs was a science pioneer in the semiconductor industry, Andy Grove. He co-founded Intel with his two other colleague. He rarely spoke publicly about Jobs. Jobs met Grove during his early tenures at Apple in the late 70’s and held him as a business mentor and friend.

Andy Grove talked about their relation in an interview: “During the early Jobs era, some of us from Silicon Valley were invited to a dinner in Palo Alto. It was 1983. At one point during the meal, Steve stands up and yells, ‘Nobody over 30 can possibly understand what computing is all about.’”

“I pulled him aside, waved my finger, and lectured him, telling him, ‘You're incredibly arrogant. You don't know what you don't know.’ His response was, ‘Teach me. Tell me what I should know.’”

Steve came for Grove’s advice even in his last years of struggling against cancer, as Grove himself was a survivor of prostate cancer.