[Book] The Soul of a New Machine

Being a Computer Science engineer, the technical aspects that Soul of a New Machine was dicussing were not very alien to me. In fact it gave a nostalgic rush of the days when we studied about the IP(Instruction Processor) in a CPU. The page fault and how the instructions are fetched into a cache memory.

Coming to an overview of the book, it was written by Tracy Kidder, a literary journalist, and writes non-fiction books. He won the Pulitzer award for his simple yet deep rendering of the creation of a new computer at the Data General Corporation, in his book, The Soul of a New Machine.

From management perspective, there were a few takeaways for me in the book. One of them was the concept of 'Mushroom Management'. It is also referred to as the Blind Development. Its a style of management where the employees are kept in dark regarding the goals and purpose of the company and there is minimal communication between the managers and the employees. It seems like a disadvantageous style of managing a company. But in Data General, West (the brain behind the 32-bit mini computer Eclipse), although did adopt the mushroom management, the employees had their purpose clearly set. To create a 32-bit mini computer. West on the other hand, kept his employees in the dark from the politics and the uncertainities that loomed around the project. He instilled inspiration and purpose in each engineer in the project so much so that everyone was ready to build the computer for any pay and wanted to push the computer out of the company doors successfully.

There is a tension about the entire period of the project where they are building an entirely new computer with a new architecture. They are not sure about the success, but West has belief in its success throughout. He does not interfere in the small specifics, and provides complete liberty to the developers and trusts them to do it. But he skillfully guides them on the path he wants them to take and creates a competitive yet fun environment, he himself not being involved in the fun part. The juniors seem to think of him as a cold aloof manager. In fact, he placed confidence in college fresh graduates to be able to build the computer, a first.

Tom West describes his motto as "Not everything worth doing is worth doing well," or "If you can do a quick-and-dirty job and it works, do it."

Reference: Kidder, T. 'The Soul of a New Machine'

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