Sir Clive Sinclair: Super Electronics Entrepreneur

44 EE January 1988 SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR: SUPER ELECTRONICS ENTREPRENEUR As both a leading developer of original ideas in the electronics industry and a businessman who pioneered mass mar- keting of his products well below the prices of his rivals, Sir Clive Sinclair has firmly established himself as the best known Britain in his field today. A public opinion poll a few years ago in the United Kingdom placed him in a list of the top ten scientists of all time alongside Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein, although he has no pro- fessional academic background and did not even go to university. After over 25 years in business, he is still producing ideas for new electronic products and launching the firms to manufacture them. To achieve this, he often drives research teams to turn his ideas into products ahead of the competition worldwide. But his commercial origins lie in techni- cal fields far removed from the wafer scale chips and portable telephones that now dominate his business...