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The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived
- Tom Watson Jr. and the Epic Story of How IBM Created the Digital Age
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's Summary
A riveting, first-ever, sweeping biography of Thomas Watson, Jr.—more important to the history and development of the modern world than Vanderbilt, Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie—who risked everything, personally and professionally, to reinvent IBM and launch the computer age that created the world we live in today
Thomas Watson Jr. drove IBM to undertake the biggest gamble in business history with a revolution no other company of the age could dare—the creation in the 1960s of the IBM System/360, the world's first fully integrated and compatible mainframe computer that laid the foundation for the information technology future. Its success made IBM the most valuable company in America. Fortune magazine touted him as “the greatest capitalist who ever lived.” Time named him one of the “One Hundred People of the Century.”
Behind closed doors, Watson was a multifaceted, complicated man. As a young man, he was a failed student and playboy, an unlikely candidate for corporate titan. He pulled his life together as a courageous World War II pilot and took over IBM after his father’s death. He suffered from anxiety and depression so overwhelming that he spent days prostrate and locked in a bathroom at home while IBM faced crisis after crisis. And he carried out a family-shattering battle over the future of IBM with his brother Dick, who expected to follow him as CEO.
But despite his many demons, he laid the foundation for what eventually became the global information technology industry, which dominates today’s world. His story, and the industry he created, is equal to, if not more important than that of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, Vanderbilt and the railroads, and Morgan in finance.
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- Anonymous User
- 24-01-2024
Great insight into IBM and Watson family
It was great to get a deeper insight into the journey IBMs taken right from its start along with the decision made and some of the reasoning behind them by both Watson Jr and Watson Sr. As a current IBMer the name Watson remains synonymous with IBM which shows what a legacy he and his family have made
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