THOMAS JOHN WATSON, SR. Biography - Bussiness people and enterpreneurs

 
 

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THOMAS JOHN WATSON, SR.

Name: Thomas John Watson                                                             
Born: 17 February 1874 Campbell, New York, U.S.                                     
Died: 19 June 1956 New York City, New York, U.S.                                     
                                                                                     
Thomas John Watson, Sr. (February 17, 1874 - June 19, 1956) was the American         
president of International Business Machines (IBM), who oversaw that company's       
growth into an international force from the 1920s to the 1950s. Watson developed     
IBM's effective management style and turned it into one of the most effective       
selling organizations yet seen, based largely around punched card tabulating         
machines. A leading self-made industrialist, he was one of the richest men of       
his time and was called the world's greatest salesman when he died in 1956.         
                                                                                     
Born on February 17, 1874, he was very much the country boy. His father owned a     
modest lumber business located in Painted Post, 20 miles west of Elmira in           
northwestern New York State. He himself as a child was something of a loner. An     
asthmatic, he was remembered as being shy at social gatherings.                     
                                                                                     
Having given up his first job teaching after just one day, he took a year's         
course in accounting and business at the local Miller School of Commerce;           
finishing in May 1892. His second job as a $6 a week bookkeeper was almost as       
brief as his first, giving way to a career as a peddler. He joined a traveling       
salesman, George Cornwell, peddling organs and pianos around the farms, for the     
local hardware store (William Bronsons). When Cornwell left, he continued alone,     
earning the sum of $10 per week. It was only after two years of this life that       
he realized he would be earning $70 per week if he were on a commission. The         
impact of his indignation on making this discovery was such that he upped stakes     
and moved from his familiar surroundings to the relative metropolis of Buffalo.     
                                                                                     
Watson then spent a very brief period selling sewing machines for Wheeler and       
Wilcox. According to Tom Watson Jr., in his autobiography, "One day my dad went     
into a roadside saloon to celebrate a sale and had too much to drink. When the       
bar closed, he found that his entire rig horse, buggy, and samples had been         
stolen. Wheeler and Wilcox fired him and dunned him for the lost property. Word     
got around, of course, and it took Dad more than a year to find another steady       
job." As Tom Jr. went on to say "This anecdote never made it into IBM lore,         
which is too bad, because it would have helped explain Father to the tens of         
thousands of people who had to follow his rules."                                   
                                                                                     
In the meantime, Watson once more set out on the road selling. In this case, his     
partner was C B Barron, a showman renowned for his disreputable conduct; which       
Watson, as a lifelong Methodist, deplored. Jointly they peddled shares of the       
Buffalo Building and Loan. They were soon very successful, and with his proceeds     
Watson set up a butchers shop as an investment. Unfortunately, true to form,         
Barron absconded with the commission and the loan funds, leaving Watson with no     
money, no investment (he lost the shop as a result), and no job. Thus for the       
second, but not the last time, he was fired.