Thomas Watson was fired several times, then sentenced to jail

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

Thomas Watson, the guy who built IBM into one of the world’s largest corporations, had a tumultuous career. He was fired twice from 2 of his early jobs, and quit 2 jobs after a few days. Later he was found guilty of anti-trust violations, and sentenced to a year in jail, though he got out of most of it. Then he became head of IBM.

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