The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM | 
 enlarge | Author: Kevin Maney
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 695119
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.7
ISBN: 0471414638
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.761004092
EAN: 9780471414636
ASIN: 0471414638
Publication Date: April 4, 2003
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Product Description
The first complete look at one of America's legendary business leaders This groundbreaking biography by Kevin Maney, acclaimed technology columnist for USA Today, offers fresh insight and new information on one of the twentieth century's greatest business figures. Over the course of forty-two years, Thomas J. Watson took a failing business called The Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company and transformed it into IBM, the world's first and most famous high-tech company. The Maverick and His Machine is the first modern biography of this business titan. Maney secured exclusive access to hundreds of boxes of Watson's long-forgotten papers, and he has produced the only complete picture of Watson the man and Watson the legendary business leader. These uncovered documents reveal new information about how Watson bet the company in the 1920s on tabulating machines-the forerunners to computers-and how he daringly beat the Great Depression of the 1930s. The documents also lead to new insights concerning the controversy that has followed Watson: his suppos ed coll usion with Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Maney paints a vivid portrait of Watson, uncovers his motivations, and offers needed context on his mammoth role in the course of modern business history. Jim Collins, author of the bestsellers Good to Great and Built to Last, writes in the Foreword to Maney's book: "Leaders like Watson are like forces of nature-almost terrifying in their release of energy and unpredictable volatility, but underneath they still adhere to certain patterns and principles. The patterns and principles might be hard to see amidst the melee, but they are there nonetheless. It takes a gifted person of insight to highlight those patterns, and that is exactly what Kevin Maney does in this book." The Maverick and His Machine also includes never-before-published photos of Watson from IBM's archives, showing Watson in greater detail than any book ever has before. Essential reading for every businessperson, tech junkie, and IBM follower, the book is also full of the kind of personal detail and reconstructed events that make it a page-turning story for general readers. The Maverick and the Machine is poised to be one of the most important business biographies in years. Kevin Maney is a nationally syndicated, award-winning technology columnist at USA Today, where he has been since 1985. He is a cover story writer whose story about IBM's bet-the-company move gained him national recognition. 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 the author of Wiley's MEGAMEDIA SHAKEOUT: The Inside Story of the Leaders and the Losers in the Exploding Communications Industry, which was a Business Week Bestseller.
Residence: Clifton, VA. "Watson was clearly a genius with a thousand helpers, yet he managed to build an institution that could transcend the genius."
-from the Foreword by Jim Collins "Like all great biographers, Kevin Maney gives us an engaging story. . .his fascinating and definitive book about IBM's founder is replete with amazing revelations and character lessons that resonate today."
-Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, bestselling author of Evolve! and When Giants Learn to Dance
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 The best biography ever written of Watson Sr December 22, 2007
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)
A good read December 29, 2006
Before I get to the review, let me say that this book gets a 10 for content. It gets only a 2 for style.
I was drawn to this book shortly after reading Lou Gerstner's "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance" (truly an excellent book, esp since it was written without a ghost writer), who makes many references to the old IBM. This book certainly paints the complete picture of what old IBM was.
Manney begins by talking about Watson's upbringing, then draws you into his times at NCR and quick rise to the top. He makes many pauses to describe the nature of character of the folks that would become major influences on Watson's business sense. He even throws in a few amusing anecdotes along the way. Then he dives into the incitement and the flood that would convince Watson of true value of integrity.
The first chapter or so on C-T-R, how Watson got the job, started off and some initial challenges are good. Then the book goes into non-linear time line and starts to loose you. For instance, Maney divides chapters into sections. One section could end in 1934 talking about Watson's big break, the next would be a personal anecdote from 1920s, the next would start off in 1917 and talk about events that lead to Watson nearly bankrupting the company. The next chapter would be a repeat, and you would again seemingly randomly jump from 1930s to 20s for no apparent reason. I found myself going back and forth many times trying to figure out how this even in '34 relates to the other event in '34 five pages ago.
Still, if you are a fan of start-from-nothing-climb-to-the-top stories, this is an absolute must read. Maney captures the essence of Watson, like very few authors could. He gives a balanced view of his personal and public lives, and most importantly, he understands that IBM's success was dependent on many people, not just Watson and so he gives them a significant amount of screen time as well.
 Thorough and well researched July 13, 2006
Kevin Maney's book on Thomas Watson Sr. describes a prideful, egotistical man driven to succeed. Very informative and well researched- Maney yaks as well as he always has.
A critique of Watson senior by Kevin Maney January 6, 2006
This book is generally pretty good, as evidenced by my 4 stars I quite enjoyed it. There is a lot of insight into what the biographer believes Tom Watson was, and I put it that way because there is a lot of interpolation by the author on what the goings on were around the company. It's an enjoyable read, but very repetitive and you can tell by the writing that it is written by someone not accustomed to writing books (the writer is a journalist). It lapses in and out of formal and informal narrative, repeats itself constantly, the author has a particular fondness for describing Watson's diatribes as "cuttingly" (which is a word?).
In any case this is the first book I've read about either of the Tom Watson's and IBM and I assume that it has done a good job of dispelling some of the myths of other books which were written about him. It's an intriguing book because the subject was so utterly obsessed and consumed by his company and his outrageous luck and "bet the farm" gambles.
Good read, I recommend it but I don't think is top class.
Highly Recommended! October 15, 2003
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book seems to have been written primarily because the author learned about the existence of boxes of Thomas Watson's papers that had never been read by any biographer or journalist. In some cases, the author's access to these new materials does help fill in some minor gaps in the existing accounts of Watson's life. And cumulatively, they take some of the shine off the legend, impressing upon one how humdrum the daily life of even a business titan must be. This book is reasonably well written and packed with memorable anecdotes. While it doesn't offer stunning new insights, we commend it as a readable, accessible and balanced introduction to one of the greatest executives of the twentieth century.
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