Seymour Cray, the penultimate "tall, thin man."
research.microsoft.com
research.microsoft.com
Last week Control Data ... announced the 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing the system there are only 34 people including the janitor. Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers ... Contrasting this modest effort with our vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most powerful computer.
-- Thomas Watson, IBM, Aug 1963 (slide 44)
It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question.
-- Cray's response
I started my career in hardware, and Cray was always one of my heroes.
* http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-penultimate-mean.htm
* http://betterppt.typepad.com/betterpresentingcom/2009/03/eig...
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/craytalk...