Customer Reviews

The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All great stories have a good guy and a bad guy. In this story, it's the same guy. Thomas Watson, Sr., by sheer force of personality, created IBM.

The best part of this book is the IBM songs at the end of every chapter. They are hillarious, but probably no more so than some of the silly cheers dot.coms used to pump up their employees.

But back to the story: Mr. Watson created the first tech growth company of the 20th century. Mr. Maney had unbelievable access to Mr. Watson's personal notes and correspondence as the primary resource to tell how he created IBM. Some of the details about meetings, drawn from the transcribed minutes, give an eerie "you are there" quality to the book. One feels almost as terrorized as the executives in those meetings.

In reading the book, one gets the clear message that Mr. Maney would have really liked to have met Mr. Watson. He truly admires his subject while at the same time showing warts and all. This is not a soft treatment of Mr. Watson. Yet, you can almost hear Mr. Maney saying between the lines, "I just wish I could have met that old S.O.B."

This book holds great detail but is an easy read. Mr. Maney's style covers the point without belaboring it. The book is often funny, sometimes sad but never disappointing.

I've generally not been a huge fan of business biographies...they can get very much bogged down in transactional specifics and company arcana, not to mention shoot-from-the-hip hindsight. This Watson biography, though, is very different and exceptionally engrossing, for two reasons: One, because Maney, whose USA Today columns are pretty much always highly entertaining, is a terrific storyteller, and two, because it seems Watson was nuts enough to have stenographers in his boardroom and all kinds of other meetings so as to preserve his words and wisdom for the ages (not something today's Sarbanes-Oxley-bound CEO's are hurrying to do!). Maney took that source material and turned it into what I found to be a very interesting page turner that's a great read for anyone interested in the history of business -- any business, not just IBM.

Maney spends a fair amount of time explaining how Watson had large early-career successes at NCR, got into very deep yogurt with the feds for anti-trust activities, and then bounced back from that taint to create the world's first great technology company. It's also fascinating, given our three year old economic malaise, to see how Watson steered IBM through the Great Depression and powered it forward into the modern era.

A very vivid and worthwhile book.

I agree with previous reviewers that Watson's story is amazing, but I do not believe that Maney execution of this book is that good.

I think that this book would have been a much better read if it was 250 pages. One of the reasons for the extra length is that the author decided to deviate from simple chronological order. Instead, Maney attempted analytical/descriptive biography, but, in my view, did not fully succeed.

I came away from this 400 page book with mixed understanding of what sort of person Watson was and what, besides the IBM culture, were his business methods and innovations.

Overall, the book did not flow, the organization of some of the chapters was not intuitive and the chapters on Watson's sons were short. I can not quite call the book disapointing, but I can not say that it was a great experience.

If IBM and computers are synonymous, so are Watson and IBM. Whatever the criticisms and the controversies surrounding the 3 magical alphabets in blue, IBM is IBM. To build such a company from ground up, offering solutions to business and scientific computing and thereby acting as the catalyst for the process of economic progress during the most part of the twentieth century is by no means an ordinary feat. That was exactly the material Thomas Watson Sr was made of. Watson has done his job and done it well and now Kevin Maney completes the rest by bringing this story in a truly remarkable manner to our bookshelves.

It is difficult not to fall in love with Watson Sr and his beloved company even half way through the book. From his humble beginnings to the misfortune at NCR, for nearly forty years Watson Sr is just another story of struggles, ups and downs. But to him, life just begins at forty with his job at CTR and of course the birth of Tom Watson Jr. The birth of IBM and its growth under the paternalistic care of Watson Sr through depressions, wars, booms and uncertainties gets a lion's share of coverage in this book. Watson Sr took big business risks bordering on a propensity to gamble, pushing IBM into higher orbits. Luck is the word the author takes recourse to while describing these successes.

The next logical part of the book deals with the succession plan at IBM that is a story by itself. Father, Son and Co by Tom Jr is widely quoted in these pages. The father's affection for his sons Tom Jr and Dick, his struggle to reconcile their differences and the frequent fights with Tom Jr are very close to what Tom Jr himself has described in his book.

The chapters on transformation of IBM into the era of electronics under Tom Jr and the trust suit that had a severe personal impact on Watson Sr deserve commendation.

While reading the pages where the old man bids goodbye to IBM and to this world, I stood up in salute to this great man.

This book describes the building of IBM under Thomas Watson Sr. who grew it from a small struggling company to an international powerhouse. The book also describes many personal aspects of Watson's life.

The source material for the book includes extensive transcripts of Watson's meetings and talks which was then condensed in the biographer's narrative style, often with small interludes of what the weather was like or how people's faces looked or how they were dressed or what they must have been feeling. Only rarely does the book print Watson's words in verbatim even though the biographer had access to vast amounts of raw Watson transcripts.

While the book does give some interesting insight into the evolution of computers and its related business, and the personal and family sacrifices that comes with being a man like Watson, the book only gives a watered down interpretation of Watson's mindset because of its lack of quotes. For this reason I have only rated it at 3 stars.

It is a very easy-to-read book. You find yourself goin' on and on readin' and you can finish the book in a couple of days. I recommend it to everybody. It is very interesting, even if you don't like or have never read a biography. Thomas Watson Sr was such an interesting man and such a succesful businessman that it is more than worth reading this book. On top you get to know a lot of the son of Thomas Watson, Tom Watson Jr and of the IBM history which is as much interesting as its creator's.
The only negative aspects are the quality of the paper, which is poor, and the margins, too narrow for the size of the font(a little bit big I think)

Ok, I admit to being a Maney fan. His trademark wit and wisdom about the tech industry are legendary.

While his wit twinkles throughout this book, it's his insight and ability to weave a fascinating tale that are truly on display here.

Watson, while no saint, deserves his legendary status. He created new ways of doing business during a time of great change and upheaval. While much of industry and finance were rife with hucksterism and scandal, Watson (ultimately) preached a focus on ethics, customers, quality, employees, and teamwork - all messages that resonate today. In an eerie way, we find ourselves living in similar tumultuous times that echo back to the early and defining Watson years. It makes this story even more riveting, and the lessons that it teaches truly relevant today.

This is clearly a serious piece of research masquerading as a 'can't put it down' bestseller.

Watson's story is a must read for every businessperson who aspires to greatness.

This biography is sure to keep you staying up late turning the pages. The life of Tom Watson is crafted as a fantastic journey from defeat to absolute success. The early lessons on constructing a corporate culture, business organization, advancing women in business, and creating revolutionary technological innovations are very interesting. In this book you not only get a lot of great busineess advice, but you also get to feel that you really know one of the greatest CEO's, Tom Watson, Sr. You learn to love his humor, his stern business practices, his big gambles, and even his unwiley temper. It is a biography full of history, life lessons, and enthralling moments.

Love my kindle and love reading

Do not enjoy spending $10 and finding grammatical and spelling errors
it interrupts the story and makes it hard to reengage

Yes, I agree it is a good story but like IBM Way, the errors aren't worth $10

Very interesting account of the making of IBM. I did not know that Thomas Watson was a valued employee of John Patterson of NCR before being terminated. Well written books documenting the beginnings of giant corporations are all interesting in their own right, this one more than most.