Book Review: Generation of Wealth by Donald Hall

Donald M. Hall has written a new book on "The rise of Control Data and how it inspired an era of innovation and investment in the Upper Midwest."  It is a mix of stock market comments and high technology business insight.  I wasn't too impressed by the sections on the local stock market in the Twin Cities, as it was incomplete and episodic.  By that I mean, it was only highlighted in a very few cases and there wasn't a consistent message easily visible in the sections.

Having watched the high technology marketplace in the Twin Cities as a manager at Univac and Unisys I know more about those sections of the book. I have always been impressed by the people of Engineering Research Associates, and this builds on that.  Bill Norris and Seymour Cray stand out in a large group of highly competent people who joined ERA and then split out into very many companies over the next 50 years.  One person of which I wasn't very aware before is Manny Villifana, who was instrumental in a number of medical device companies, and particularly St. Jude Medical.  He is an interesting character who was definitely comfortable with risk.

The book highlights the financial successes that were Control Data, Medtronic, and others in the Twin Cities.  But, it also points out that there were many companies that didn't succeed.  And, there were many more projects that failed.  Bill Norris, in particular, toward the end of his career seemed to like to start things that were not likely to succeed financially, but might help people or further some philanthropic goals. However, these were distractions to the computer company, and probably took a lot of management time away for the mainstream of Control Data.

This is by no means a complete story on Control Data, Cray Research, Cray Computer.  There is a display that was made for the Minnesota Historical Society that tracks ERA and its successor companies.  I don't know what happened to that display,

It was an interesting read in many parts.