Thomas Watson Jr. drove IBM to undertake the biggest gamble in business history with a revolution no other company of the age could dare- the creation in the 1960s of the IBM System/360, the world''s first fully integrated and compatible mainframe computer that laid the foundation for the information technology future. Its success made IBM the most valuable company in America. Fortune magazine touted him as "the greatest capitalist who ever lived." Time named him one of the "One Hundred People of the Century."
Behind closed doors, Watson was a multifaceted, complicated man. As a young man, he was a failed student and playboy, an unlikely candidate for corporate titan. He pulled his life together as a courageous World War II pilot and took over IBM after his father''s death. He suffered from anxiety and depression so overwhelming that he spent days prostrate and locked in a bathroom at home while IBM faced crisis after crisis. And he carried out a family-shattering battle over
