Gordon Moore

Moore's Law

A predictive law stating that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years, keeping costs per component constant. Gordon Moore plotted historical data on logarithmic graph paper and discovered the exponential curve. If traditional forecasting tools had existed in 1965, Moore's Law would have been the most accurate predictor of the future across all sectors.

Use case: Strategic planning in semiconductor and technology industries. Understanding long-term competitive dynamics and market evolution in high-tech sectors.

“The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue if not to increase.”

From Moore's 1965 article predicting the exponential growth of transistor density, which became known as Moore's Law.

“He had some really peculiar ideas about how to motivate people. First of all, he was extremely competitive and controversial. If there's two ways of stating things, one of which was controversial and one of which was straightforward, he'd pick the controversial one every time.”

Moore's assessment of Shockley's management philosophy at his semiconductor company

“I had the privilege of informing him that I was part of the group. And so essentially was everyone else on the senior staff.”

Telling Shockley that the entire senior staff had united against him