#87 Thomas Watson (IBM)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high. So I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th.
Thomas Watson began his life at age 40 after Dayton, Ohio nearly ruined him. In Dayton, Watson experienced fantastic success and near destruction. All of it had to happen for IBM to exist at all and for Watson to take his place among history's great business figures. All right, so that's an excerpt from the book that I read this week and the one I'm going to talk to you about today, which is The Maverick and His Machine, Thomas Watson Sr. and The Making of IBM, and it was written by Kevin Maney. Before I jump into the book, let me just tell you where I found this book. I was actually listening to Marc Andreessen talk.
He's the one that invented the Mosaic browser, which turned into the company Netscape. But he's also rather well known because he's the co-founder of the venture capital firm A16Z. And he was talking and I was taking notes on some of the stuff he was saying. And let me just read this to you. He says, The entrepreneurs of the past were extreme characters. I'm thinking of Thomas Watson Sr. If you want to know what it is like to work for someone who is harsh, read a book on Thomas Watson Sr. He makes all of today's entrepreneurs look like cream puffs.
So as soon as I heard him say that, I just went ahead and ordered the book. He also blurbed for the book too, but Marc, like every single other founder that I've studied, studied founders that came before him.
In fact, he says something that I think is really pertinent to what we're doing here, the point behind founders. So this is another quote from Marc. He says, There are thousands of years in history in which lots and lots of very smart people worked very hard and ran all types of experiments on how to create new businesses, inventing new technology and new ways to manage, etc.
They ran these experiments throughout their entire lives. At some point, somebody put them down in a book. For very little money and a few hours of time, you can learn from someone's accumulated experience.
There is so much more to learn from the past than we often realize. You could productively spend your time reading experiences of great people who have come before you and learn every time.
So I just bring that up because this is one of my free episodes of founders. If you're a long time listener, you already know. I gave half my podcast away for free. I don't have ads or any other ways to support the podcast, except for people that actually are learning from the podcast and get value out of my work. And then the other half, I call it the misfit feed. You sign up. It is a way to pay a small amount per month. Actually, now there's an annual option, too. So if you're interested in supporting the podcast and hearing half of all the podcasts I've ever done, I do two extra podcasts every month just for the misfits, and you can unlock the entire back catalog. And I think what Marc is saying here, for very little money and a few hours of time, in this case on a monthly basis, you can learn from someone's keen limited experience. I think that's the best way to clearly tell you what's the value proposition for these episodes of Founders. But if you listen to them, I think it's pretty obvious to you. All right, so let me go ahead and jump into this book. There's a lot of notes here, and this is going to be, it's a strange one. I'm just going to tell you that up front.