He joined Caltech alumnus William Shockley at the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory division of Beckman Instruments, but left with the "Traitorous Eight" to create the influential Fairchild Semiconductor corporation.

Moore set off his first boom in Silicon Valley two decades before pioneering the design of the integrated circuit. One afternoon in 1940, near the spot where Interstate 280 intersects Sand Hill Road today, the future father of the semiconductor industry knelt beside a cache of homemade dynamite and lit the fuse. He was 11 years old.

He co-founded Intel Corporation in July of 1968, serving as Executive Vice President until 1975 when he became President and Chief Executive Officer. In April 1979, Dr. Moore became Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, holding that position until April 1987, when he became Chairman of the Board.

In 2001, Moore and his wife donated $600 million to Caltech, the largest gift ever to an institution of higher education. He said that he wants the gift to be used to keep Caltech at the forefront of research and technology. Moore was chairman of Caltech's board of trustees from 1994 to 2000, and continues as a trustee today.

The library at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge is named after him and his wife Betty, as is the Moore Laboratories building (dedicated 1996) at Caltech.

With his wife he endowed the Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation.