In 1959, Sherman Fairchild exercised his right to purchase shares of the members of the traitorous eight. Jay Last recalled (in 2007) that this event happened too early and turned former partners into ordinary employees, destroying the team spirit. In November 1960, Tom Bay, the Vice President of Marketing at Fairchild, accused Last of squandering money and demanded termination of Last's project of developing integrated circuits. Moore refused to help Last, and Noyce declined to discuss the matter. This conflict was the last straw: on January 31, 1961 Last and Hoerni left Fairchild and to head Amelco, the microelectronics branch of Teledyne. Kleiner and Roberts joined them after a few weeks. Blank, Grinich, Moore and Noyce stayed with Fairchild. The traitorous eight split into two groups of four.