The Rise and Fall of the ‘IBM Way’

But The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived, a briskly told biography of Thomas J. Watson Jr., IBM’s mid-20th-century CEO, makes clear that the history of the company offers much more than an object lesson about complacent Goliaths. As the book’s co-authors, Watson’s grandson Ralph Watson McElvenny and Marc Wortman, emphasize, IBM was remarkably prescient in making the leap from mechanical to electronic technologies, helping usher in the digital age. Among large corporations, it was unusually entrepreneurial, focused on new frontiers. Its anachronisms were striking too. Decades after most big American firms had embraced control by professional, salaried managers, IBM remained a family-run company, fueled by loyalty as well as plenty of tension. (What family isn’t?) Its bosses were frequently at odds. Meanwhile, it served its customers with fanatical attentiveness, and, starting in the Depression, promised its workers lifetime employment. “Have respect for the individual” was IBM’s creed.