Important life lessons to learn from Gene Amdahl

What does it take for huge organizations to process large chunks of data or to perform critical tasks? Apart from extra amazing programmers they need superfast machines with massive computing capabilities. Thanks to Gene Amdahl, the world got introduced to such effective systems called the mainframe computers that take care of every critical task for large organisations. Mainframe computers first came into existence in the late 1950s when they were replacing vacuum tubes. That was the time when mainframes were the only computers and could be afforded only by very big firms but now they have become the backbone of every business unit, no matter big or small.

Mainframe computers have a wide range of applications now from ecommerce to health care to military applications. As Gene breathed his last on November 10th, 2015, the world lost a great brain but even after his death he continues to inspire us in numerous ways. Here are some important life lessons that we can learn from Gene Amdahl.

It doesn’t matter where you come from but where you go: Gene studied at a one room school without electricity but paved way for a generation of computers and entrepreneurial spirit. This is what HackerEarth stands for too – pedigree doesn’t matter; meritocracy does.

Balance between the call of duty and passion: Gene lived his youth during the World War 2. He served the navy during the war, but that didn’t stop him from pursuing his passion. He followed his navy service with a degree in Engineering physics at South Dakota University and then studied theoretical physics at the University of Wisconsin and completed his doctorate there. He made his first computer then in 1952 which was called the Wisconsin synchronized computer.

Believe in yourself: What do we do if our ideas are rejected at our workplace, be sad, crib about it, lose confidence or give up? Rejection happened to Gene Amdahl at IBM in September 1970 when his ideas for computer
development were rejected. But he didn’t lose hope – he quit his well paying job at IBM and set up Amdahl Corporation with help from Fujitsu. His company did compete with IBM in the mainframe market and shipped its first machine in 1975 which was reliable and less expensive. Now, that is called belief in your own potential.

Never give up: When Gene left Amdahl corporation in 1979 to set up Trilogy systems with the aim to manufacture a chip for even cheaper mainframes, he didn’t know he would fail. The failure, however, didn’t demotivate him. He went on to develop VLSI technology but that attempt failed too. The failure of that project however led to the merger of Trilogy into Elxsi. When Elxsi also failed he moved on to his new venture Andor international, the bankruptcy of which lead him to co- found Commercial data servers which now develops applications to scan mainframe datasets and database tables for sensitive information such as Credit Card Numbers, Social Security and other government identification numbers, sensitive medical diagnosis information that can be linked to an individual, and other information such as that needed for electronic discovery.This may have looked like a saga of failures at first but his success lies in not giving up and opening pathways for newer innovations in mainframe computing. His perseverance secured him a position as one of the Board of advisors of Massively Parallel technologies.

Gene Amdahl lost his life to pneumonia but the industry will always stay indebted to him for his contributions and work. He may have died but his contributions will stay with us forever.

Smriti Tuteja Author 15 Blogs