The Legend of Nucor Corporation: 2nd Edition

As an early Amdahl hire (emp. # 79), I found the first part somewhat thin. The $50 million in venture funding was the largest ever at the tine. Those were amazing and exciting times. Imagine, this machine was the first "clone." (a computer that ran the existing software of IBM customers without modification). First customer acceptance - Aug. 10, 1975 - was the first time in history that computing got cheaper. But, I enjoyed reading the book and recalling many of the folks who made it happen.

Both Joel's have it right, IMHO. I knew "the other Joel" well during my time at Amdahl (is it only ex-Amdahl employees that buy this book? :-) ) and agree with his assessement, but would add that there was a passing mention of the 580 experience (see page 64, but they certainly didn't call it "near-death"!), the Key Computing Lab venture, and the problems with Joshua/Toro/Sona.But not in the detail or accuracy that was appropriate. The problem is that the interviews were with engineers who started with the company early and were in upper management positions when things went sour. They weren't in the trenches fixing the problems, and perhaps weren't willing to make painful observations, e.g. that the decision to continue with ECL instead of designing a CMOS machine was short-sighted. (It actually led to higher revenues in the short term because our ECL machines were faster than IBM's CMOS machines, but ours were much more expensive to manufacture, which led to profitability problems.)I was in the trenches working on the 5995M, and the observation on page 101 that the 5995M suffered from "some technology problems from Fujitsu" is quite an understatement. Details of the problems and their hard won solutions would have been far more interesting than the bland "I knew we would fix it" statements. And make no mistake, all of these issues were the beginning of the end for a great company. In 2000, when this book was written, there was still a company left, but since then it has split further (Amdahl Software became Softek for example) and going to [...] now takes you to [...]Still, I enjoyed reading the book. It has some shortcomings, but if you were part of that experience, as I was, I think you'll be glad you read the book. Whether or not it's worth a hardcover price is another question.

Missing key people in write up - Dutton, Murray Scureman, Kip Witter, Tom McKenna, John Mangold, Henry Castle, Ted van Duyn, etc, Folks who helped build the firm in the late 70's, early 80's The folks who did yeoman's duty in growing the firm - Joe Francesconi, Dave Beamer, Bill O'Connell, Ollie Nutt, Milt Nelson, outsiders Ned Heizer and Heinz Nixdorf, for example, don't get enough credit. There are many other folks completely missing who were top drawer executives. It's almost as if the interview list was vetted by the two folks who sponsored the 'history'Rodengen is a hired gun who writes corporate history for a fee. From the index, it appears the book was funded by and is a tribute to Zemke and Wright, who wound down the firm and necessitated Jack Lewis to come back out of retirement to keep the firm afloat. Jack was a great President and Amdahl was not fortunate to be able to have him stay in the day-to-day role fro health reasons. Sadly, a successor who could live up to his standards was never found. In that sense it's revisionist history by the leaders who were at the helm when the ship sank - you get what you pay for. In the early days of the firm, we all felt untied by our core mission, work ethic, and shared in successes. Later additions tot he firm brought on corporate hardening of the arteries (Gene Amdhal's own words), and imposed bureaucracy that stifled innovation and focus.The pictures are great and brought back many memories. Some of the relevant facts are missing and glossed over.Silly ventures into electronic payments, application and UNIX SW, and servers took the firm focus off of core competencies and their original work ethic, and burned precious resources in development and bad hires.There's much more to the story of the CEO suddenly resigning for personal reasons, and if it isn't under seal, it's in the public divorce records.Great pictures. Good testament to the engineers.How much did Rodengen get to author this? Sorry - but my Mom taught me when all else failed to argue the facts, and many of the facts of this 'history' are missing: the battle over IP, the EC standards battle, offshore cash, the covenants of the FJ ownership arrangement, selection fo technology platforms several years before product development, etc. Jack was the leader in the middle of these pithy issues. Gene White was the leader who persisted and had faith in the firm prior to any product being shipped. Gene and Jack were lions. Men of substance, character, and leaders. Zemke and Wright weren't. Sad.