This article is from the April 1, 2001, issue of Red Herring magazine.

Admired executives who could stand a little coaching:

T.J. Rodgers, CEO and president of Cypress Semiconductor (NYSE: CY), is so harsh an interrogator that the company sends its employees to seminars to learn how to handle what the seminar leader calls his "precision questioning." Cypress, however, says the seminars are not related to Mr. Rodgers's style; a company representative described him as a "perfect gentleman."

Andrew Grove, chairman of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), once terrorized a meeting, according to Tim Jackson's book Inside Intel: Andy Grove and the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Chip Company (Plume, 1998). Mr. Grove brandished a piece of wood the size of a baseball bat, the end encased by a glove with the middle finger extended, and slammed it down on a conference table, shouting "I don't ever, ever want to be in another meeting with this group that doesn't start and end when it's scheduled." An Intel spokesman said the company had not co”perated with Mr. Jackson on the book and declined to comment.

Bob Levine, cofounder of Cabletron Systems (NYSE: CS), used cameras to monitor employees' movements and removed all chairs from company meeting rooms.

Albert Dunlap, a.k.a. "Chainsaw Al," "The Shredder," and "Rambo in Pinstripes," is now living in the Midwest. He cut a swath through corporate America (Scott Paper, Sunbeam (OTC BB: SOCNQ.OB)), ruthlessly cutting costs. In his 1996 book Mean Business: How I Save Bad Companies and Make Good Companies Great (Simon & Schuster), he recounted how once, while visiting an investment banking house, he stormed out of the bathroom after noticing they weren't using his company's brand of toilet paper and screamed, "I want to see you buying better toilet paper!"