Thursday, August 21, 2014

“Father, Son, and Co.” by Thomas J. Watson Jr. and Peter Petre


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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