Synopses & Reviews
For an extraordinary fifty-seven-year period, the chief executives of the International Business Machines Corporation were Thomas J. Watson and Thomas J. Watson, father and son. IBM bears the imprint of both men -- their ambitions and their strengths -- but it also bears the consequences of a family that was in near-constant conflict.
Eminent historian Richard S. Tedlow explores the interplay between the personalities of these two extraordinary men and the firm they created. Both Watsons had deeply held beliefs about what a corporation is and should be. These ideas helped make "Big Blue" the bluest of blue-chip stocks during their tenure. These very ideals, however, also sowed the seeds for IBM's disasters in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the company had lost sight of the original meaning behind many of the practices each man put into place.
Review
“From Richard Tedlows insightful group portrait of seven American entrepreneurs...a rough formula for titanhood can be deduced.” Atlantic Monthly
Review
“Tedlows ‘passionate and fluid writing makes Giants of Enterprise a pleasure to read.” Business Week
Review
“Tedlows mastery as a historian…takes us to the heart of what is unique about the American economy.” Michael E. PorterBishop William Lawrence University ProfessorHarvard Business School
Review
One of the top ten business books of 2001 Business Week
About the Author
Richard S. Tedlow is the Class of 1949 Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, where he is a specialist in the history of business. He is the author of Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built. In addition to his teaching and research, Professor Tedlow has consulted and taught both marketing and business history to a variety of companies and organizations.