• In Conversation

Upon joining Intel as an engineer, Vinod Dham co-invented the flash drive, co-founded the Pentium chip processor and went on to become Intel’s vice president. At 45, driven by a midlife crisis, Dham decided to join a startup rather than enjoy his riches. Today, he heads a $189-million company, the India-specific NEA-IndoUS Ventures.

Tell us about your background and how you landed your job at Intel?
I consider myself lucky, because my life’s journey was not planned but accidental.

My family came to India as refugees during the partition and my father joined the army as a civilian. I was born in Pune, as that’s where my father was posted at that time, and I did my early education there.

After completing my bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering in 1971, I wanted to go abroad and study microelectronics. There were barely any jobs available in India in 1971. But I joined Continental Devices, the only company that was close to my home. Gurpreet Singh of Continental Devices wanted to make it a world-class semiconductor company; there, I received my first exposure to semiconductors. I think Continental Devices could have been the Intel of India.

Finally, in 1975, I decided to go to Cincinnati to do an MSEE in Solid State Sciences. Back then, my parents could not conceive of me going to the U.S. to study semiconductors. Upon graduating, I moved to Dayton, Ohio, and joined MCR. Then, at a conference in California, some people from Intel—who were also there presenting their work—saw a presentation I gave and said they wanted me to join Intel.

You say Continental Devices could have been the Intel of India. What went wrong?
During one of my visits to India, I had a chance meeting with Gurpreet Singh. He was a visionary and much ahead of his time, if I may say so. Sardarji, which is what we used to call him, was not a techie—he was an economist from the London School of Economics. But he was very aware that in semiconductors lay the future.

One day, upon his insistence, I stayed at his house for a night. Just as I was about to go to bed, Singh said, “This is the same bed that Bob Noyce slept in during his visit to India in the 1960s.” I was struck by the fact that Intel’s co-founder was in Singh’s house way back in the 1960s. On probing further, Singh said that Noyce had come to Delhi in the year 1963 or ‘64. He discussed with the government his interest in using India as a base for manufacturing low-cost silicon semiconductors for export. This was during the License Raj. Government officials gave Noyce permission to manufacture 200,000 units, instead of the 10 million per annum production capacity that he wanted.

So Noyce dropped his plans to invest in India (causing Continental Devices to lose the opportunity) and moved to Hong Kong, where he set up a semiconductor plant. Five years later, Noyce and Gordon Moore founded NM Electronics, which was soon renamed as Intel.

What was it like working at Intel?
Life requires you to reinvent yourself multiple times. At Intel, I wanted to join the microprocessor branch. I approached the boss of that branch, armed with my appraisals. After going through them, he was impressed but said he couldn’t give me a job, since there were none available and also because I was a senior in the company.

At around that time, Intel had started production of its 386 chip, but faced major problems with it. Production was taking place at half the installed capacity, and Intel ran the risk of being outgunned by rivals like Motorola. A task force was formed at the highest level to sort out the problem, and I was a part of it. I was the only one with a technology background, the rest had design experience. My contributions to fixing the technological issues were highly appreciated—and soon, I found myself in the 486 chip team.

Why did you leave Intel?
When I joined Intel in 1979, I was basically still an engineer. I gradually moved up the management ranks—leading projects and running businesses, being a part of the upper management as a vice president, and then leading the Pentium project (the greatest success Intel has had with any of its products). At that time, if you were in Silicon Valley and did not start a company from scratch, you were not considered a man.

In 1995, when I turned 45, I went through this major midlife crisis that I had to resolve. Either I could continue to be in a management position at Intel and stay inside its cocoon, or I could take a plunge into the unknown, the dark side, the world of startups. I decided to quit Intel. A very worried father heard of my decision on the TV and was shell-shocked. He couldn’t understand the logic behind my move and told me I was crazy to do it.

What did you do after leaving Intel?
I joined a company called NexGen, which was about eight or nine years old, as its CEO. The company had been developing an X86 product; I thought I could bring my experience from Intel and help them. It was very different working at NexGen as compared to Intel—I found the situation very chaotic. I quickly figured out their problems and was able to make sure the company achieved some breakthrough in its product. The company was ultimately bought by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel’s competitor, and I found myself working there. At AMD, I helped develop the K6 microprocessor, which was faster then any processor Intel had to offer.

Was being an Indian in the U.S. an advantage or a disadvantage for you?
Today, being an Indian in Silicon Valley is a huge advantage—but that was not the case 15 years ago. It is different in the U.S. for us now, not only because of the success Indians have had there, but also because of the success enjoyed by Indians in India. Infosys is the poster child of the Indian IT industry across the world. That’s not to say that it was a disadvantage before, but I don’t think it was an advantage, either.

What is the difference between VCs in the U.S. and those in India?
Venture capital in the U.S. is about 30 billion dollars, and its shrinking after the economic crisis. The ecosystem is very mature in the U.S., where people excel and the best of the brains from around the world come together. VC in India is a very recent phenomenon. We are trying to replicate the U.S. way, but it’ll take us a lot of time to get there.

©Entrepreneur December 2009

Tags:
chips, Continental Devices, Intel, microprocessors, semi conductors, Vinod Dham