Thomas Watson Sr.

CEO of IBM for 42 years (1914-1956) who transformed a small tabulating machine company into the world's dominant technology corporation — and created the corporate sales culture that defined American business for a generation.

IBM's corporate culture invention: Watson created the IBM sales culture (blue suits, white shirts, THINK motto, company songs, rigorous training) as a system for producing consistent, professional salespeople at scale. His business model — leasing rather than selling equipment, providing service and support, maintaining proprietary integration — created customer lock-in and recurring revenue that made IBM the most profitable technology company of its era. His son Tom Watson Jr.'s decision to bet the company on the IBM 360 computer (1964) is the defining moment in computing history.