The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived

August 28, 2023
As the rebellious eldest son of the founder of IBM, Tom Watson Jr. (1914–1993) spent his childhood chafing under the influence of his domineering father. McElvenny, Watson’s eldest grandson, and historian Wortman (Admiral Hyland Rickover) offer a nuanced portrait of Watson, who went on to unexpectedly make business history. Subject to bouts of depression and considerable self-doubt stemming from his meritless promotions within the company, Watson found purpose during WWII. Trained as a pilot, he was commanded by Maj. Gen. Follett Bradley, a father figure under whose guidance Watson studied international diplomacy, managed enlisted servicemen, and learned to succeed on his own merit. He returned to IBM in 1946 and served as president from 1952 to 1971, where he is credited with bringing America (and the world) into the computer age. The authors outline the agonizing period when Watson bet the company on the IBM 360, the first scalable business computer (it allowed companies to expand their computer operations from small to larger computers while maintaining the same software), which led to the widespread adoption of business computing. Watson retired in 1971, and later was appointed U.S. ambassador to Russia. The authors skillfully weave this profile of a recalcitrant heir together with a chronicle of computing in the 20th century. It’s an informative and entertaining study.

September 1, 2023
Comprehensive biography of the tech pioneer who transformed IBM into a digital giant. As early as 1964, Tom Watson Jr. (1914-1993) was "widely esteemed as the most successful head of a major corporation in mid-twentieth-century America." He wasn't the easiest person to get along with, given to excoriating underperformers, but he was also democratically inclined, at a far remove from his father's aloof demeanor. By McElvenny and Wortman's account, Watson's greatest success was developing a computer that, thanks to a relatively simplified operating system, was compatible with other machines, offering "solutions to myriad problems previously beyond calculation, even imagining." This machine provided an essential underpinning for the modern economy, making possible the use of credit cards, improving inventory management, and eventually forming a network of computers and servers that would become the internet. The authors take numerous detours in this history, with one pressing concern being to exonerate IBM from the charge that it helped the Hitler regime. While technology was provided to the Nazis via a subsidiary organization, Watson's father, they argue, disengaged from the German state well before the U.S. entered World War II, when Watson Sr. "put IBM and its comprehensive social and business culture in the service of the US and its allies." IBM would become a linchpin in the Cold War technological economy, with Watson Jr. inaugurating a transformation into the new world of personal computing and, at one point, hiring more than 2,000 programmers to develop software. On that note, the authors let some of the air out of the legend that Bill Gates skunked IBM by developing MS DOS as industry-standard software, noting that IBM would have courted antitrust scrutiny had it required a proprietary system. In a swift-moving narrative, the authors make clear that Watson was a man of parts, one of the prime shapers of the modern technological world. A readable and revealing work of business and tech history.

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