Up and to the Right: My personal and business journey building the Microchip Technology juggernaut

by Steve Sanghi

Up and to the Right is the story of the transformation of Microchip Technology from a struggling company no one seemed to want or value to one of the most successful semiconductor suppliers in the world, growing from losing $10M a year to a global revenue of over $8B per year. Steve Sanghi tells the story as both a personal journey - from growing up in small towns of Northern India to coming to the United States in 1976 to build a life and a career – and as a record of the business challenges he and his team grappled with through the years.

After a ten-year stint at Intel Corporation, and a brief stay at Wafer Scale Integration, Steve spent the last 32 year of his life building Microchip Technology into a semiconductor juggernaut. Microchip today is one of the broadest semiconductor suppliers to Industrial, Automotive, Data centers, Consumer appliances, Communication, Aerospace, and defense industries. This book is the story of building Microchip into this powerhouse of a company built from the jaws of bankruptcy in 1990.

The book covers the transformation of Microchip from a failing company in 1990 to a market leader with a market capitalization of over $43 billion. Microchip’s success was built on an in-house consciously designed Aggregate System that dramatically accelerated the company’s rate of improvement. The book also covers Microchip’s strategic planning process and its series of acquisitions that scaled the company 10X.

Like many companies, Microchip Technology has faced many difficult times, and more than a few full-blown crises brought on by world events, economic disruptions, and market changes. This book chronicles those events and how under Steve’s leadership and the arduous work of the Microchip Technology team, the company always came out better than before each challenge.

In some ways, this story is like that of other companies that weathered early adversity to achieve success. What makes this story unique is how Steve guided the change from a poor corporate culture into Microchip’s culture of success, inclusion, shared rewards, innovation, trust, and communication. All through the book, Steve shows progress of Microchip through various phases. Through this transformation, employee commitment and Steve’s vision, the company continues to move Up and to the Right on every measure of performance.

Genres: Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

Published May 25, 2023

Reviews

[Chris Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this history of Microchip Corporation and learning about how they structured their company for growth and to withstand downturns in the industry. Could use a good editor to cleanup parts of it, but nothing major.