The Net, Grove recalls Vadasz telling him, would matter as much as the core technology that made the microprocessor possible.

Good call.

It was one of many for Vadasz, 66, a man who has relentlessly pursued knowledge in an Intel career that will end, officially, with his retirement June 1.

This ‘‘engineer’s engineer,’’ as Grove describes Vadasz, has spent a career both in the center and at the edge of things - holding a host of key engineering and managerial positions inside what became the world’s largest computer chip maker, but always learning about what was new.

He’s officially listed as the company’s third employee, dating back to Intel’s founding in 1968. Not so. ‘‘Somebody screwed up,’’ he says genially.

After Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded Intel, the first person they hired was Grove, who in turn hired fellow Hungarian immigrant Vadasz, with whom he’d worked at Fairchild Semiconductor. Vadasz got Intel employee badge No. 3 because when it came time to formalize things for record-keeping purposes, an administrator listed him before Grove.

With his early Intel colleagues, Vadasz played a role in the creation and commercialization of many technologies, including memory chips and the microprocessor, that have changed so much of our lives. It was ‘‘heady stuff,’’ he says.

He held one senior post after another, running major divisions and businesses inside Intel and serving on the board of directors. He went deeply into strategic planning. He stayed on top of what was new, always trying to understand early what would matter.

‘‘It interested me, how a large technology company stays at the leading edge of technology, how it renews itself,’’ he says.

A bit more than a decade ago, Vadasz reinvented his career in a way that will keep having an impact, by building the company’s now-massive venture capital arm. It was less a financial play - it certainly didn’t mimic traditional venture investing - than a strategic one. He was investing in companies whose technologies and products would help Intel’s own core businesses.

The venture business, he says, has been a lot of fun. ‘‘I do get excited about new technology - understanding not just what it is but what it could be.’’

Until fairly recently, Vadasz has been the least public member of Intel’s senior management. That changed in large part because he took on a policy issue that has become one of the hottest potatoes around: copyright.

In early March 2002, he testified at a congressional hearing on copyright issues and took, for the most part, the side of the users of technology against the owners of copyrights. Hollywood’s wish for total control, he told the lawmakers, was not in the public interest.

Vadasz’s remarks drew a withering attack from a senior entertainment mogul, Michael Eisner of Disney, who claimed, with standard Hollywood hyperbole, that the tech industry’s growth was ‘‘dependent on pirated content.’’

Vadasz calls that day ‘‘one of the most frustrating experiences I can imagine, an immense pressure cooker.’’ But he says the outcome was worth it because ‘‘we woke up a lot of people that there’s a real issue here.’’

What’s next? Vadasz says he hopes to have a ‘‘somewhat less rigorous schedule.’’ He’ll do some teaching and plans to spend more time on his family charitable foundation.

He also plans to do some studying. ‘‘One of the most important parts of my journey has been learning,’’ he says. ‘‘That won’t stop.’’

No doubt about it, says Grove. Les Vadasz ‘‘is going to keep on learning as long as he keeps on breathing.’’