Sublime

In engineering work in the drafting room, it was plain to the men to whom he gave his work that he could not make a sketch or read a blueprint. It was to his everlasting credit that, with his limited formal education, his mind worked like a modern electronic calculating machine and he had the answer to what he wanted. The trick was to fathom the de

Among Kelly Johnson’s strengths was a sure grasp of what mattered to his people and what didn’t. Most of them were engineers and tinkerers who hated paperwork, which he cut to an absolute minimum.

Great Groups need to know that the person at the top will fight like a tiger for them. It was one of the things that the PARC group admired most about Bob Taylor. Interestingly, Tom West fought hard for his Eagle group at Data General but chose not to tell them, reasoning that it would only distract them from the project. As a result, some of his t

The willingness of PARC’s leadership to battle the home office inspired enormous loyalty among members of the group. In putting himself on the line, Pake played the crucial role that General Groves had served in the Manhattan Project and that Kelly Johnson played at the Skunk Works.