[HN Gopher] The father-son struggle that helped ensure IBM's suc...
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       The father-son struggle that helped ensure IBM's success
        
       Author : benbreen
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2023-11-09 02:54 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | niccl wrote:
       | no paywall
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20231026105511/https://www.nytim...
        
         | CamperBob2 wrote:
         | Love the lead photo. That is just Kubrick AF.
        
       | gumby wrote:
       | The autobiography of Watson Jnr that Tim Wu mentions, "Father,
       | Son and Company" really is an excellent read. I enjoyed it a lot
       | and I've never liked IBM's hardware. It of course has a lot to
       | say about the 360 (and how revolutionary it was), but also about
       | management.
       | 
       | https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/03/books/growing-up-at-big-b...
        
         | TMWNN wrote:
         | Agreed on the autobiography's excellence. Among other things,
         | Watson Jr. sadly recounts how he and his father drove to
         | colleges around the Northeast US looking for one that would
         | accept the son and his mediocre academic record (Watson was
         | likely dyslexic, or had some other learning disability); Brown
         | is the one that reluctantly does so.
         | 
         | Wartime service as a pilot was the first time Watson Jr. found
         | himself good at anything, and he expected to stay flying until
         | he was pulled back to IBM. He had built contacts in Russia
         | during the war, and used that experience when serving as the US
         | ambassador to the Soviet Union after IBM.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-09 23:00 UTC)