You’ve seen the placards. Maybe in an old black-and-white photo or a kitschy office supply shop. A single word in block letters: THINK.
Most people assume it’s just another corporate motivational poster, the kind of thing Dilbert would mock. But for Thomas J. Watson, the man who built IBM from a disjointed mess of clock-making and scale-weighing companies into a global titan, it was a religion. Honestly, it's hard to overstate how much this one guy's personality is baked into the DNA of modern corporate life. From the way we dress for interviews to the "family" culture of Big Tech, it basically all starts with Watson.
But here’s the thing: the "saintly" version of Watson you find in old business textbooks is a bit of a myth. He wasn't just a visionary; he was a ruthless salesman, a man who once got indicted for anti-competitive practices, and a leader whose legacy is shadowed by some of the 20th century's darkest moments.
The Salesman Who Failed Upward
Watson didn’t start at the top. Far from it.
He was a traveling salesman in upstate New York, hawking sewing machines and pianos from the back of a wagon. He was actually kind of bad at it initially. He lost his first job, and for a while, it looked like he was going to be another footnote in the history of the Gilded Age.
Then he hit the National Cash Register Company (NCR).
👉 See also: Can You Get Viruses From Pornhub? What Most People Get Wrong
Under the legendary—and notoriously volatile—John Henry Patterson, Watson learned the "NCR way." This was essentially the birthplace of modern sales training. We’re talking scripted pitches, quotas, and high-pressure tactics. Watson excelled there, but he also learned the "knockout" business. This was a shady practice where NCR would set up second-hand shops next to competitors, sell broken machines to ruin their reputation, and basically bully everyone else out of the market.
It worked. But it also led to a massive federal antitrust indictment in 1912. Watson was convicted and sentenced to jail.
You’d think that would be the end of a career. It wasn't. While the case was being appealed (and eventually dropped on a technicality), Watson was fired by Patterson in a fit of rage. He walked away with a massive ego, a legendary reputation, and a job offer to lead the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R).
In 1924, he renamed it International Business Machines. IBM was born.
Why the "THINK" Motto Wasn't Just a Slogan
When Watson took over C-T-R, the company was a wreck. It made coffee grinders, butcher scales, and punch-card tabulators. There was zero cohesion.
Watson’s solution wasn't just better engineering. It was a cultural overhaul. He didn't want employees; he wanted IBMers.
He introduced the white shirt and dark suit dress code. He built a company school. He even had a company songbook where employees sang hymns to IBM. It sounds cultish now, but in the 1920s and 30s, this was "welfare capitalism." He gave his workers paid vacations, life insurance, and a sense of belonging at a time when most factory workers were treated like disposable parts.
The Real Meaning of THINK
Watson first used the "THINK" motto back at NCR during a meeting where the sales force looked defeated. He told them, "The trouble with every one of us is that we don't think enough. We don't get paid for working with our feet — we get paid for working with our heads."
✨ Don't miss: Finding a Download Video from YouTube Extension That Actually Works in 2026
At IBM, he made it inescapable. It was on desks, on walls, and in the company magazine. He wasn't asking people to ponder philosophy. He was asking them to anticipate the customer's next problem. He shifted the focus from "selling a machine" to "solving a business process." That shift is why IBM survived the Great Depression while others folded.
The Great Depression Gamble
While every other CEO was laying people off and hunkerind down, Watson did something insane.
He kept the factories running at full tilt.
He hired more salespeople. He poured money into R&D. Inventory piled up in warehouses until the company was nearly insolvent. His board of directors thought he’d lost his mind.
Then came 1935.
The U.S. government passed the Social Security Act. Suddenly, the government had to track the employment history and earnings of 26 million people. It was the biggest accounting project in human history.
And who was the only company with thousands of tabulating machines ready to ship and a workforce trained to use them? IBM.
📖 Related: App store non mi apre aggiornamenti in background su iphone: perché succede e come risolvere
That one "bet-the-company" move turned IBM into a near-monopoly for decades. It wasn't luck; it was a calculated risk that the world was moving toward data-driven governance.
The Controversy: IBM and Nazi Germany
We have to talk about the elephant in the room. You can't discuss Thomas J. Watson IBM history without addressing the 1930s.
Watson was an internationalist. His slogan was "World Peace Through World Trade." He honestly believed that if countries traded enough, they wouldn’t go to war. This philosophy led him to maintain ties with Nazi Germany long after the regime's horrors were becoming public.
In 1937, Watson accepted the Merit Cross of the German Eagle from Hitler. At the time, he was the President of the International Chamber of Commerce.
The criticism, most famously detailed by Edwin Black in IBM and the Holocaust, is that IBM’s German subsidiary, Dehomag, provided the punch-card technology used to conduct the censuses that identified Jewish populations.
Watson eventually returned the medal in 1940, but by then, the damage to his reputation was done. Historians still debate his level of "knowing." Was he a collaborator, or just a capitalist who couldn't imagine a world where trade didn't solve everything? Most evidence suggests a man obsessed with his company's growth who ignored the moral cost until it was far too late.
The Transition to the Computer Age
There’s a famous quote often attributed to Watson: "I think there is a world market for about five computers."
He almost certainly never said it.
In fact, Watson was a huge supporter of the Harvard Mark I, one of the earliest electromechanical computers. However, he was a man of the mechanical age. He loved his punch cards. He understood tabulators. Electronic "brains" that used vacuum tubes seemed like a risky, expensive distraction from the reliable revenue of the cards.
The real shift to digital happened because of his son, Thomas J. Watson Jr. The relationship between the two was explosive. They screamed at each other in the hallways. The elder Watson was an autocrat; the younger Watson saw that the future was electronic.
When Watson Sr. finally stepped down in 1956—just weeks before his death—he left behind a company that was the undisputed king of business data. His son took that foundation and built the IBM 701 and the System/360, which basically defined the mainframe era.
What You Can Learn From Watson Today
Despite the flaws and the controversies, Watson’s blueprint for business is still the one most successful companies use today. If you're looking for actionable takeaways from his 42-year reign, here they are:
- Culture is a Product: Watson didn't just sell machines; he sold the "IBM Way." If your team doesn't have a shared identity, you're just a group of people in a building.
- Invest in the Slump: His decision to overproduce during the Depression is a masterclass in contrarian thinking. When everyone else is afraid, that's when you build your inventory (or your skills).
- The Customer is the Purpose: Watson used to say the customer isn't an interruption of work, but the purpose of it. He pioneered the "solution-based" sale. Don't tell people what your product is; tell them what it solves.
- Respect the "Unsafe" Thinker: Ironically, for a man who demanded dark suits and white shirts, Watson often encouraged his managers to speak their minds. He famously said, "Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker."
Moving Forward
To truly understand the tech world of 2026, you have to look at the guy who figured out how to organize information before the silicon chip even existed. Thomas J. Watson wasn't a "techie." He was a philosopher of order and a titan of sales.
If you're looking to apply these principles, start by auditing your own "THINK" process. Are you reacting to the market, or are you building the infrastructure the market will need two years from now? That was Watson's real secret. He didn't just wait for the future; he manufactured the machines that would be needed to run it.
Check out the archives at the IBM Museum or read Thomas J. Watson Jr.’s autobiography, Father, Son & Co., for a more nuanced look at the man behind the motto. You'll find that the reality is much more interesting than the placard.