> On Jan 4, 2022, at 10:40 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
> On 1/4/22 12:14 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
>> Seymour Cray, along with Bill Norris and Jim Thornton and others left
>> Remington Rand/UNIVAC after Rand bought the near-bankrupt ERA. Apparently,
>> the work environment at Rand was felt to be stifling. Norris had all of the
>> Navy connections and was a great marketer, so bringing some of Rand's
>> engineering talent along was a natural.
>
> Interesting.
>
> I guess I thought that since Seymour left CDC to form Cray Research, that
> meant that he was more of an employee at CDC and had less influence on how it
> operated as a company. I would have assumed that someone that was a founder
> would have had more influence and tried to improve things before splitting
> off and forming yet another new company.
Being a founder doesn't necessarily help much if the company gets big and
chairwarmers take control. It's one thing if you're a chairwarmer yourself and
rise to CEO, but if you're a top engineer you may be in a non-control position
-- especially back then when managers were managers and engineers just did what
they were told.
For another example, consider Steve Jobs, who didn't even leave Apple
voluntarily.
paul
