Andy Grove: The man who transformed Intel

David Crookes profiles a man often overlooked when discussing history's most influential people in tech

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Molotov cocktails arced through the foggy October air as Red Army tanks made their way down the frozen streets of Budapest. It was October 1956, and the city pulsed with fury. Crowds roared and urged the Soviets to leave, only for their cries to be drowned out by the rattle of machine gun fire.

András Gróf was 20 years old and just starting his second year at the University of Budapest. His young life had been difficult. Mocked as a Jew at school before the Second World War, he'd been forced into hiding with his mother during the Nazi occupation from 1944, avoiding the brownshirts and living in a cellar with other families.

When the war was over, Hungary emerged from the destruction under the USSR’s totalitarian sphere of influence, yet life continued to be tough for Gróf and his family. His father, arrested and tortured in a labour camp, had returned only to have his business taken away from him by the Soviet-backed Communist Party. Food and fuel were sparse.

While Gróf grew to enjoy some of the finer things life had to offer, in particular finding a love for literature and opera, problems were never far from the surface. So when the Hungarian Revolution began in 1956, Gróf knew he needed to escape. With his family’s backing, he joined 180,000 other Hungarians heading for the border with Austria, while a further 20,000 sought refuge in Yugoslavia.

Crossing the Iron Curtain wasn’t easy. There were landmines, watchtowers and spotlights that would flood the ground and pick out refugees desperately trying to avoid detection. To progress, Gróf, accompanied by his best friend, Jancsi, had to move forward with the utmost caution. They walked through a dozen villages and eventually reached an open field with faint lights in the distance. Aware that they were looking at Austria, the pair traipsed forward, their feet sticking in the mud. Then they began to hear dogs barking.