"My final word about editing. I was to appear on the cover of a business magazine, and the writer who came to interview me was intrigued with engineers, scientists, PhDs founding and running companies. It was somewhat more unusual back in those days than now, although it was not without ample precedents in the past. So the question he put to me right away starting the interview was, "Would you say, Dr. Ramo, that engineers make the best managers?" And I said, "Engineers make the best engineers." It may be that some engineers will have managerial talents, and be in the right place at the right time, just as may be true of lawyers or accountants or salesmen, or tax experts or whatever. Now, on the magazine then, here was this picture of me, and here was this quote: "Engineers make the best engineers." Well, someone, before the cover actually got out, knew that that was a mistake. Obviously that had been a misprint. So looking at the text, and seeing the question that was asked of me, he changed it to: "Engineers make the best managers." "I quote Dr. Ramo on engineers." All right."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Physicists from the United StatesBusiness theorists from the United StatesPeople from Salt Lake CityPeople from UtahSystems engineers
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Simon Ramo
Simon "Si" Ramo (May 7, 1913 – June 27, 2016) was an American physicist, engineer, and business leader. He led development of microwave and missile technology and is sometimes known as the father of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
6 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Simon Ramo →
Related Quotes
"We are in rapid transition today to a new world which threatens to be dominated by technological advance. In that new…"
"Well, Benny, now that we know the thing can fly, all we have to do is improve its range a bit."
"In April 1946, when I came to Hughes Aircraft to institute high-technology research and development, it was far from …"
"Whether what you manage is a business, hospital, university department, government agency or even a symphony orchestr…"
"Obama can't announce that man-in-space is out of date because of the political consequences... Senators and congressm…"
"We must realize that growth is but an adolescent phase of life that stops when physical maturity is reached. If growt…"
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is man's inability to understand the exponential function."
"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term …"
"In an enterprise such as the building of the atomic bomb the difference between ideas, hopes, suggestions and theoret…"
"I remember having listened to Fermi’s discussions on hydrodynamics with von Neumann. (These took the strange form of …"