"I faced unknown dangers if I left, I faced known dangers if I stayed," Grove said of the experience. "When I realized that it was riskier to stay because of the downside, I started on my journey."
The rest of Grove's life was about similar choices, he said.
From the spur-of-the-moment decision to switch from chemistry to engineering to the "impetuous" decision to marry his wife at age 20 to the decision to pursue a more controversial and risky treatment for his cancer, Grove had no regrets.
"Life is full of risks," he explained to the 885 graduating students in the audience. "You have to move on."
"For those of you who made the decision to come to Harvard, to stick it out, to accept a job...you have many more decisions ahead of you," he said.
Grove also made it clear that a students' hunches and logical reasoning skills are both crucial to their success and growth.
"You must use intuition and analysis, not intuition or analysis," said Grove, who also authored Only the Paranoid Survive. "You cannot expect to use both on an equal weight, I don't think there is a right balance or right answer. But when you use them together you achieve the optimal result."