The Maverick and His Machine

False Start

Thomas Watson was almost 40 when he began his real career. Until then, he was a successful salesman for National Cash Register, but that turned out to be sort of a false start. In 1903, NCR founder John H. Patterson directed him to set up a dummy company to destroy competitors in the used cash register business. This secret, anti-competitive initiative was supposed to cut prices on used cash registers so low that other firms couldn’t survive in the business. Watson would buy out any competitors, and eventually NCR would have a monopoly or near-monopoly. Watson did an exemplary job and was rewarded in 1910 with a promotion to sales manager of NCR, responsible for 200 branches and 900 salesmen.

Watson learned a great deal at NCR, a very tight organization dominated by Patterson, who had a rule for everything. He even told employees how often they could bathe. His sales manual included verbatim sales pitches, including instructions on when to point at the machine they were selling. As sales manager, Watson somewhat loosened the controls, and his men loved him for it. Watson formed a very influential friendship with NCR product developer Charles Kettering, ...