The Rickover Corpus: A digital archive of Admiral Rickover's speeches and memos | Hacker News Reader

The Rickover Corpus: A digital archive of Admiral Rickover's speeches and memos

rickovercorpus.org

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"Some thoughts on the presidency" [1]

(The site's index dates this to 1952, but it mentions "the events of 1974.")

[1] https://rickover-corpus.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/Some+Thou...

The Nixon memo is dated for 1980 from after Nixon was president.

I'm two pages in, and it is excellent.

Quotables in in every paragraph!

There's a lot of timeless, good analysis. But there's also somewhat dated concerns (like the energy crisis stuff) where it's clear that he's responding to the issue du jour.

Yes, it mentions the energy crisis so dates it to late 70s at least. Also President Reagan, so after 1981. Probably well after.

  Unless the one person truly responsible can be identified when something goes wrong, then no one has been really responsible

Ah, it's Apple's DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) designation!

It is always interesting how such principles are much older than our current examples!

I've read a few articles about him, but I never heard him speak. I just pulled this up, and I find it fascinating:

https://taproot.com/rickover-60-minutes-interview/

I’ve known some lovable @$$#ol3$ who have the rare amalgamation of talent, self-possession, misanthropy. Their successes seem unrelated to their persons. Purely anecdotal, but don’t they all have difficult parents…

I found this a particularly good read:

https://rickovercorpus.org/?file=https%3A%2F%2Frickover-corp...

Truly amazing resource. Thanks to the folks funding this, and doing the scans.

From the website:

This project was compiled and digitized by Charles Yang under the Center for Industrial Strategy, with assistance from Jacks Flenniken.

Some credit also given to the US Naval Academy archivists (usna.edu), and whoever preserved his files to begin with.

Ah, the "Kindly Old Gentleman"...

Though a very difficult man to get on with... He did champion the correct building of the first nuclear subs.

Yep, a complex, flawed character.

Unquestionably the right person for that particular job, though. He was Mr. "Failure is Not an Option" years before Gene Kranz.

This sounds like the title of a Charlie Stross novel.

Never heard of this guy - Nimitz seems better

Different domains. Admiral Rickover focused on the nuclear propulsion aspect of the navy. Its like comparing the CEO of a company with one of the heads of engineering.

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