The Maverick and His Machine

"...a rich and thorough portrait that goes right back to turn-of-the-century America..." (Business Voice, March 2003) The story of Watson's transformation of the disorganized, amorphous Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company into steamlined, world-famous IBM receives a spirited telling by Maney, a USA Today technology columnist. Access to previously unexplored records has provided juicy raw material, including letters and internal memos, to bring America's first celebrity CEO to life in this wart-sand-all biography: Watson (1874-1956) saw the strategic value of corporate culture early and was protective of what he built; Maney argues that the strength of that culture later allowed IBM to survive the potentially devastating effects of Watson's personality flaws. Charismatic, optimistic and generous, Watson was also self-absorbed and psychologically ruthless in getting things done his way. Hard to work for and unable to distinguish between the company and himself, he also behaved like a dictatorial CEO when wreaked havoc with his family. Watson's mania for overreaching peaked when he accepted a decoration from Hitler in 1937 under the deluded impression that Hitler woul d follow Watson's ca mpaign for world peace through world trade; according to Maney, that episode illustrates how out-of-control Watson's ego had grown. Yet, as Maney makes clear in this timely tale of the man who made information into an industry and discovered the power of corporate culture, "Watson wasn't just the best business story at the end of the 1930s; he had become a great American success story that captured the popular imagination." Agent, Sandy Dijkstra. (May). Forecast: Maney's book should hold great appeal not only for avid business readers but also for devotees of the vicissitudes of financial dynasties. That appeal will be supported by a 75,000-copy first printing and a $100,000 ad/promo budget. (Publishers Weekly, March 17, 2003) "...Maney has written a timely and authoritative biography. Without lapsing into hero worship, he presents a great, if flawed, man in all his humanity." (Business Week, May 12, 2003) WHEN Thomas J. Watson Jr., who ran the International Business Machines Corporation during its climb to dominance in the computer industry, published his memoirs in 1990, he called the book "Father, Son & Co." His father - who had taken over a motley assortment of business machine companies in 1914 while awaiting sentencing on a criminal antitrust conviction - loomed large in the story. Indeed, one reason the book has become a business classic is surely its poignant, child's-eye view of the flawed yet fascinating father who created I.B.M. and brought it to the brink of the computer age before passing it to his son, who died in 1993. The portrait of Thomas J. Watson Sr. in his son's memoirs had all of the misty myopia that accompanies any child's perceptions of a fearfully adored parent. One reviewer complained that "we hear too little of life within I.B.M. - and too much of Mr. Watson telling us how awful it was being his father's son." A much more lively and nuanced picture of the senior Watson can be found in Kevin Maney's excellent new biography, "The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson Sr. and the Making of I.B.M." (John Wiley & Sons, $29.95). Enriched by access to Watson's personal papers from the I.B.M. archives, the book brings this complex man to life and provides a clearer sense of how the I.B.M. culture took shape around one man's quirks, preferences and iron whims. The company songs, the daily white shirts, the polish and pomp of corporate ceremonies - all of them were manifestations of Watson's own overcompensating insecurities. An awkward young man from a family with little money, he started out in a career that was the punchline of countless American jokes: the trav

KEVIN MANEY is a nationally syndicated, award-winning USA Today technology columnist. He was voted best technology columnist by the business journalism publication TJFR. Marketing Computers magazine has, four times, named him one of the most influential technology columnists. He is also the author of the BusinessWeek bestseller Megamedia Shakeout, from Wiley. Maney lives in Clifton, Virginia, with his wife and two children.

Foreword. Introduction. Prologue. Chapter 1: Maverick Kindling. Chapter 2: Lit by Flint. Chapter 3: A Mess Spelled C-T-R. Chapter 4: Bringing Up Baby IBM. Chapter 5: Daring and Luck. Chapter 6: Friends, Heroes, Sycophants. Chapter 7: Enemies and Delusions. Chapter 8: King and Castle. Chapter 9: Watson the Second. Chapter 10: Watson's War. Chapter 11: Old Man, New Electronic Age. Chapter 12: World Conquest. Chapter 13: The Maverick and His Humanity. Chapter 14: Generations After. Selected Bibliography. Notes. Index.