Kevin Maney > Quotes

“The human brain has a mechanism for dealing with data overload. It forgets. If indeed we’re on a path to building machines that think like us, how ironic if the next great invention in computer memory turns out to be forgetting.”
― Kevin Maney, Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company

“Maybe that’s why we did things so fast,” said Jerrier Haddad, a managing engineer on the 701. “We didn’t have schedules to slow us down.”
― Kevin Maney, Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company

“...A well-written, well-organized book packages the author's brain. It is the purest, richest, most complete way to take what's inside one person's brain and move it into another person's brain...As long as society finds it valuable to consume the stories, research, and thoughts of its intellectual leaders, the basic idea of the book should endure. Paper books will get pressured by electronic versions over time, but the art form should remain vital.”
― Kevin Maney, Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't

“So computer companies, listening to their existing customers, didn’t”
― Kevin Maney, Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company

“When I joined the company," Watson said in a speech years later, "our three divisions were not disorganized-they were unorganized. There were plenty of ideas lying around, but many of them seemed too big for the organization to handle. The directors told me, `You'll have to go out and hire outside brains before you can build up this company.' I told them, `That's not my policy. I like to develop men from the ranks and promote them.' "2 Watson believed that lifelong employees were more likely to live and breathe the company, and remain dedicated to giving their all.”
― Kevin Maney, The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM