Thomas J. Watson Sr. built IBM from a tiny company into the
dominant name in office machine supply, especially punch cards machines. He
brought his son, Thomas Watson Jr., into the company, and he began the massive
transformation of IBM into a computer giant. This is their story.
It is the story of two strong, stubborn, temperamental
personalities who were not the easiest to live with, including with other. Their battles with each other were as epic as
their battles with competitors. Thomas Sr. both wanted his sons in the company,
but didn’t want to let up on his control. Yet it was Thomas Jr. who realized
that computers would drive punch cards out and dragged IBM into the second half
of the twentieth century. Since they also liked smart, stubborn people, the
Watsons surrounded themselves with smart, stubborn people, creating a “team of
rivals” except their goal was to make money, and make money they did.
Thomas Sr. and Thomas Jr. both had adventuresome lives. The
father worked his way up from poverty to moving the circles of power in
American industry. As one of the few liberal businessmen, he had access to the
Roosevelt Administration, and pioneered the good treatment of workers to create
company loyalty. Chapter twenty-four of
this book borders on Thomas Jr. considering paternalistic companies as an antidote
to what Marxism would call the alienation of worker; he considered ways to turn
IBM into a company owned by its employees and related that to the protection of
democracy. Thomas Jr. was an Air Force
pilot in WWII, flying in Russia, China, and over the Atlantic, and after his
retirement an ambassador to the Soviet Union.
You can also read this book for an outline of the computer
industry in America. IBM provided most
of the computers in the nation. The New Deal created so much paperwork that IBM’s
sales and thus production increased through the Great Depression and obviously
then WWII. To explain company decisions, Thomas Jr. had to explain his
competitors, too. Much of the middle third of the book is the struggle to keep up
not only with technological advances, but with years of back orders.
So whether you are interested in family history, computer
history, or management theory, this is a good book for you.
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