Founders - #215: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (The General and the Genius)

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

What I learned from reading The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----It is clear that nothing short of a full-speed, all-out attempt would be worthwhile.Once Leslie Groves accepted his new assignment, he embraced it completely. From his appointment in September 1942 until the end of the war, he worked at full speed, often fourteen hours a day or more. His remarkable energy and stamina frequently exhausted those who worked and traveled with him.Groves's style was to delegate whatever he could and then put the screws to the delegees. He was a taskmaster.The instructions to the project were that any individual in the project who felt that the ultimate completion was going to be delayed by as much as a day by something that was happening, it was his duty to report it direct to me. Urgency was on us right from the start.When Marshall asked him if he ever praised anyone for a job well done, Groves said no. "I don't believe in it. No matter how well something is being done, it can always be done better and faster.”Oppenheimer insisted that Los Alamos should have one director. He had learned enough about management from studying Groves to believe that while consensus was important, an organization needed a single leader.The dual approaches reflected Groves's belief in pursuing multiple solutions to a problem until the problem is solved. In a frank assessment of his boss after the war, he called him, "the biggest S.O.B. I have ever worked for. He is the most demanding. He is the most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic. He disregards all normal organizational channels. He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make timely, difficult decisions. He is the most egotistical man I know. He knows he is right and so sticks by his decision. He abounds with energy and expects everyone to work as hard or even harder than he does. If I had to do my part of the atomic bomb project over again and had the privilege of picking my boss I would pick General Groves."Groves had a reputation for competence. He was demanding, rough, and sometimes brutal with his staff, intolerant of delay and mental slowness. On the other hand, he never swore, rarely lost his temper, and never raised his voice. He was also prepared to let subordinates disagree if their arguments were sound. He disliked people who groveled.Groves remained unflappable, accepting the unanticipated as normal.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ----Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

The partnership between General Leslie Groves and the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer is one of the great stories of the Second World War, and it was as unexpected as it was successful. There was little in either man's life before 1942 to suggest that the general and the physicist would ever meet, much less form a close working association to develop an atomic bomb. They came from very different cultural and economic backgrounds. Their careers alone would have kept them apart had not the war thrown them together and changed their lives utterly. In Robert Oppenheimer, Leslie Groves found the man to help him achieve fame and success through the creation of a secret weapon that could end America's greatest war. Oppenheimer did that

by recruiting scientists and engineers, inspiring them, and under Groves' supervision, leading them in creating the new bomb. In Groves, Robert Oppenheimer found the man who would reinvigorate his career and give direction to his life. Groves did that by giving him an unimaginably grand scientific and engineering task, along with virtually unlimited resources. Hundreds of thousands of people in research laboratories and plants across the United States helped to create the atomic bomb, but the successful development of this weapon in record time is in no small part due to the complex, sometimes tense, but always productive partnership between Groves and Oppenheimer. That was an excerpt from the book that we talked about today, which is The General and the Genius, Groves and Oppenheimer, the unlikely

partnership that built the atom bomb. And it was written by James Konecka. So before I jump into the book, let me tell you how this connects with everything else that you and I have been learning and how I came to discover this book. So there is something that I discovered in reading a bunch of biographies of Steve Jobs, a trait that he had that I think is a good idea to copy. And that's to learn from every experience he had, figure out the underlying principle of that experience, and then apply that to his work. So for example, he's a young boy, his father was a meticulous craftsman. Steve saw his father build cabinets, build fences, and he would apply the same quality of wood and materials to the parts of the fence and the cabinet that no one would ever see as he did to the front. And the lesson he taught Steve was that you do a job to the highest level all the way through,

not because the customer would see it, but because that way you know that you did your level best. Another example, Steve's taking a walk in Paris. He's in his mid-20s. He's walking with his mentor, his former boss, Nolan Bushnell, who's also the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese. And Steve made the observation about the fact that Paris is one of the most unique cities in the entire world because of the uniformity of the architecture and design. Steve said that somebody could be dropped in anywhere in Paris, not be told where they are, and they would immediately know that they're in Paris. And Steve wanted to take the uniformity of the design of the architecture in Paris and apply that to the products that Apple would make. That they'd be so distinct that even if they didn't have the Apple logo on it,

you would know exactly that it was an Apple device. And then finally, Steve leads us directly to J. Robert Oppenheimer. He talks about what he learned from reading about J. Robert Oppenheimer, how one of Oppenheimer's most important talents was recruiting the very best scientist and physicist for the Manhattan Project and leading an entire team of A players to accomplish something that's never been done before. And so Steve took that idea and he said when he went back to Apple that what he learned from Oppenheimer was his goal. He even

said that he wasn't as good at it as Oppenheimer was, but he said he was close. And so that made me think, hey, I should go find, if Steve's reading about J-Rob and Albert Heimer, why am I not doing the same thing? Why don't I go find a biography of him? And so sometimes before I'll read a biography of somebody, sometimes I'll buy like an audiobook that's related to that person to serve as just another form of research. And what that does is usually the audiobook gives me an idea of who the person was before I sit down and read a biography of them. So I started the, a few months ago, I started the audiobook of The General and the Genius, and I got a few hours in, and I thought the story was so remarkable that I should buy the book and actually do a podcast on this book.

And so to prepare for this podcast, before I sat down to talk to you, I spent about 20 hours reading and taking notes on this book. At the same time I was reading the book, I also re-listened to an episode of Hardcore History by Dan Carlin. It's Hardcore History, episode number 59. It's called The Destroyer of Worlds. It is a nearly six-hour long podcast about the birth of the atomic age, the Manhattan Project, and then it goes several decades longer than this book actually does. This book ends, or leaves leaves off rather with the end of World War II. And the reason I bring that to your attention is because I just sat down for a few hours going back over all my notes and highlights, and I was taking out anything that was not

related to the partnership of Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves. I think there are a ton of leadership lessons that we can learn from both Oppenheimer, but especially Groves, because Groves was the man, the single man in charge of the entire Manhattan Project, a project that had to be built from scratch, that employed over 100,000 people. And in today's dollars, they spent about 22 or 25 billion in just over two years. So the one highlight I kept in that is not about the partnership between Oppenheimer and Groves actually comes, there's a lot of famous scientists that make cameos in the book, as you can imagine. So you're talking about Albert Einstein, Teller, Fermi, Richard Feynman. So towards the end of the book, there's a fantastic quote that I loved, that I found. And this is the first time I think I've come across it. And it's from Richard Feynman. And it's talking about, well, let me just read it to you. It says, when asked about the scientist's role in developing the atomic bomb during the war, this is after it's already been used on

Hiroshima, Hiroshima, however you pronounce it, and Nagasaki, Richard Feynman responded this way, and so now this is Feynman talking directly to us. Once in Hawaii, I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple, a man said, I'm going to tell you something that you will never forget. To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. Thater context of the development of the atomic bombs from historical context i can't i i i highly highly recommend listening to the destroyer of worlds by it's hardcore street number 59 there was a lot of parts in the podcast that i learned while i was reading the book at the same time so it made me go to Dan's website because he'll put, Dan doesn't mess around. So he does like two podcasts a year. They're more like short audio books. And so I was like, wait, I wonder if we read some of the same books. Cause I was learning a lot of the same, a lot of the facts that are in this book show up in his podcast. And he had read like 40 books before he read 40

books for research for the episode that he did. So I thought it was interesting. I thought it paired very nicely with this book. All right. So let's go into this is the morning of the test that happens at the it's the test site. They codename it called Trinity. This is the test they do before they drop it in the bombs on Japan. And we're getting the brief summary of what Oppenheimer

had been up to the previous two years. And I think why Jobs wanted to read about him and drew inspiration. So it says at 41 years old, he was perhaps the nation's preeminent theoretical physicist and the man who over the last two years had the thousands of scientists, engineers and workers in designing and building the gadget. That was the code name they made for the bomb. And I also thought that was interesting because if you think Steve Jobs' second stint with Apple, he's going to be the man over the next, let's say, what is it, 10, 13 years, 12 years that he was there that would have to lead thousands of scientists, engineers, designers, and workers in designing and building a gadget.

His just happened to be computing devices as opposed to a bomb. And so we'll see. And I'm glad I read this book right after rereading the Steve Jobs biography, because I think that Jobs is a combination of Groves and Oppenheimer. And I was actually surprised as I went back through the last few hours and reread all of my notes and went through all the highlights is I have a lot more highlights about Groves than I do Oppenheimer. You'll see here's an introduction to him. Groves was accustomed to making difficult decisions and living with them. And this is why I said that jobs is kind of a combination of both of them. Groves never relinquished his role as general and chief executive officer. Groves was in charge, making or approving all major decisions.

So I'm going to continue this introduction to General Groves that occurs over several pages. But I want to bring two things to your attention before I continue. One is this idea that you and I talk about over and over again, that books the original links, that they lead us from one person to another person or one idea to another. From reading about Steve Jobs, I was led to J. Robert Oppenheimer. From researching J. Robert Oppenheimer. I'm led to Leslie Groves. And number two, some helpful background before we jump into him. This is the guy that oversaw not only the construction of the Pentagon, he was responsible for that, but he also, he's the director and main person responsible for the Manhattan Project. You're talking about an extremely formidable individual. And I just think there's a lot of leadership traits and approaches to work that he can actually teach us. So it says, Gross had a reputation for competence. It's extremely intelligence, but he's also a hard ass. He was demanding, rough, and sometimes brutal with his staff, intolerant of delay and of mental slowness. On the other hand, he never swore, rarely lost his

temper, and never raised his voice. He was also prepared to let subordinates disagree if their arguments were sound. And he disliked people who groveled. So just like Oppenheimer, he wanted to be surrounded by and work with extremely competent and talented people, and he didn't want you to kiss his ass. He liked a demonstration of spirit and independence in the people he worked with. Groves' style was to delegate whatever he could and then put the screws to the delegies. He was a taskmaster. And he had extremely high, this is something he's going to share in common with a lot of the people that you and I have studied on the podcast. He has extremely high standards.

So this Colonel Nichols is going to tell us what it was like working with him. Nichols remembered inspecting a construction site with Groves. The general criticized the project at every stage. When he asked him if he ever praised anyone for a job well done, Groves said, no, I don't believe in it. No matter how well something is being done, it can always be done better and faster. But Nichols was smart enough to see through Groves' gruff persona to the results that he was achieving so before I read this to you he's they call it a frank assessment so this is his subordinate talking about what is your opinion of the job that your boss Groves did is important to understand that the Manhattan Project started because of intel that the Germans figured out a way to develop nuclear weapons. And that was in 1939,

several years before America officially got involved in World War II. But the reason I bring that to your attention is because it's not just Germany. Once the news came out, it was Germany, Russia, Britain, Japan, the United States, all trying to accomplish the same goal. And yet they all failed and Groves succeeded. That is why it's so important to actually pay attention to the way he approached this project and his work. And there's just a ton of lessons in there. Okay, so it says, in a frank assessment of his boss after the war, he called him the biggest son of a bitch I have ever worked for. He is the most demanding.

He is the most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic. He disregards all normal organizational channels. He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make timely, difficult decisions. He is the most egotistical man I know. He knows he is right and so he sticks by his decision.

He abounds with energy and expects everyone to work as hard or even harder than he does. If I had to do my part of the atomic bomb project over again and had the privilege of picking my boss, I would pick General Groves. Another important point I want to bring to your attention, too. Groves was not the person that started the project. This guy named Colonel Marshall was the person that started the Manhattan Project, or what would soon become the Manhattan Project. And so Marshall is going to get fired, and then Groves is hired as his replacement. And he's going to talk about the view on the project. No one thought it was, I guess I should just tell you, no one thought it was actually going to succeed. And you can see why, because you have all these other people, you know, there's other

smart people in every country, they have resources in every country, yet they failed at doing this, right? So it says, part of the problem as Grove saw it was that Marshall was too deferential and he wasn't demanding enough of his subordinates. He did not have the drive and ability to push the project at the speed needed. And because I read that paragraph shortly after reading that 600 and something page biography of Michael Jordan, what I thought about was what Michael Jordan said when he got to the Olympics in 92 for the Dream Team. He said Jordan had been surprised to learn how lazy many of his Olympic teammates were about practice. He said they were deceiving themselves about what the game required. It's a similar idea to what Groves is saying about Marshall.

You're not demanding enough. You don't have the drive. You need to push the project at the speed that's needed. Groves did not want the job, but he understood how he got it. You see, at that time, nobody thought it would succeed. Nobody with any brains at all could possibly think it would succeed. So he didn't want the job, but once he got it, we see his MO. Groves quickly proved himself with his unflagging energy and ability to make decisions. Moreover, he now realized that he had the assignment of a lifetime and sprang into action.

And so that realization is something that he shares with Oppenheimer. They both knew at the time, okay, this is going to be the high watermark of my career. They're attempting to do something that no human in human history had ever done before. In fact, let me tell you something. There is a in present day, there's a plaque at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory that describes. I thought it was a great description and it appears at the end of the book that gives us insight into how historical of an achievement this was. It says all the men and women who made the first atomic bomb passed through this portal to their secret mission at Los Alamos. Their creation in 27 months of the weapon that ended World War Two was one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. OK, so let's go back to the point in the book where we're at.

Groves gets the assignment and now he needs a number two. So the way to think about Groves is the person in charge. Oppenheimer is going to be like his right hand man. And so this is a great description of why Groves needed Robert Oppenheimer. Groves has spent his whole career on increasingly complex construction projects. But finding scientists who understood how to design a bomb was going to be a far greater challenge. He would need a certain kind of scientist to help him, a man who could comprehend the theoretical considerations, but also lead the effort to convert theories into practical, deliverable weapons. So Groves is going around and trying to recruit physicists. Almost all of them have some kind of

position at universities at the time. He's going to meet Oppenheimer at the house of Berkeley, because Oppenheimer is teaching at Berkeley at the time. So he's going to meet Oppenheimer at the House of Berkeley because Oppenheimer's teaching at Berkeley at the time. So he's going to meet Oppenheimer for the first time at the House of Berkeley's president. And it says, the general was taken

with the intelligent, articulate physicist. Oppenheimer's mind was like Quicksilver, but it was his remarkable ability to explain complex concepts clearly and without condescension that most impressed Groves. His unambiguous answers to the general's questions were markedly different than what Groves experienced

from previous conversations with people he was trying to recruit. They discussed the idea of a secret central laboratory where all fission projects could be conducted and coordinated. And that is exactly what they're going to build at Los Alamos in New Mexico. What was interesting, too, to think about this is when the announcement is made that Groves chooses Oppenheimer, even though everybody around Oppenheimer thinks he's brilliant, he didn't have any administrative experience, didn't have any experience managing anything. And so they're quite surprised. Let me just pull out a couple of quotes here.

These are people that had worked with him. The names are relevant. This guy didn't think Oppenheimer was the most obvious candidate. He had no experience directing a large organization. Here's another quote. One of Oppenheimer's closest colleagues found it an almost improbable appointment. I was astonished. Groves thought otherwise. Shortly after the war, he told an interviewer about Oppenheimer. He's a genius, a real genius. Oppenheimer can talk to you about anything that you bring up. He looks right through you. I feel like he can read my mind. And so a lot of the people that knew Oppenheimer at the time, they're like, yes, he's the smartest of the smart that you could possibly find. But they didn't particularly think that he could be an effective leader

and his own career at the time, which is also going to lead into why Oppenheimer desperately wanted this. It was kind of like middling. He was he's one of these people that you might have run into your life with. They're way too that are really, really smart. But they have not had they have yet to achieve like any kind of markable achievement to match up with their intelligence, I guess, is the way to think about it. So it's Oppenheimer who desperately wanted the job accepted without hesitation. He had told his wife that he was courting Groves like a lover. He was almost 40 and had published few important papers. In fact, he was better known as a co-author on papers written by his students. He doubted that he

would ever win the Nobel Prize, and it was increasingly clear that his career had stalled. He had seen many of his colleagues leave their teaching posts to take important positions in war-related research. His career needed a boost, and the directorship of a new laboratory vital to the war would provide that. And so something that Groves repeats over and over again in the book is the fact that he prioritized speed. And so I need to give you some historical context.

Why are the Americans moving with such a sense of urgency? And if you think about how complex this project is, you have this gigantic scientific and engineering and part construction project on a scale that's hard to imagine, trying to attempt something that's never been done before. And they do it from a dead stop to a successful completion in 27 months. So it's talking about why they're having to hustle. It is quite possible that the Germans are a year ahead of us, or perhaps even 18 months, are having even 18 month head start.

So I guess I should pause there. They thought they were building an atomic bomb to drop on Germany. That was the initial goal of the project. By the time the bomb is ready, Germany has already surrendered and Japan's the only one still fighting. So it says, I would judge that there was an even chance that the Germans would produce a number of effective bombs by the middle of 1945 and a slight chance of their achieving the same result by the summer of 1944. To my mind, it is the fear that the Germans may be near their goal, which is the prime reason for an all-out effort now on this gamble. This being so, it is clear that nothing

short of a full-speed, all-out attempt would be worthwhile. And I made sure to underline that last sentence twice, because you and I may not be under the threat of imminent nuclear extermination, but we do only have one life and a limited time here. So this idea that we approach our lives the same way, I like that. It is clear that nothing short of a full speed, all out attempt would be worthwhile. Now let's move ahead. We're going to see another similarity between Groves' management style and Steve Jobs. So it says, in his personal supervision of the Manhattan Project, with his high standards and expectations, Grove was often heavy-handed, rude,

and even brutish with his subordinates, but not with Oppenheimer. This is going to remind you how Steve Jobs approached his working relationships with Johnny Ive at Apple and John Lasseter at Pixar. The way Steve was with them is the way Groves was with Oppenheimer. So Groves was often heavy-handed, rude, and even brutish with his subordinates,

but not with Oppenheimer. Their collaboration was marked by a cautious respect and a shared commitment to success, and each man knew that the other was totally committed to developing a weapon of war okay so let's move on Oppenheimer he has the job this is the part where Steve Jobs studied him because it's all about recruiting they have to what's crazy to me this is interesting I'm looking at the note I left my myself on this page and it's even it's it winds up hitting me even harder a couple hundred pages in the future and and I'll share with you there. But I was writing to myself about what is happening.

It's like, this is crazy. They have to build the entire project from scratch. It's like a giant startup. But instead of like if you let's say you're trying to manufacture a physical good, it's like you can't you have to build a here is like it's like having to build a factory before you can even start to build the business. And it's like later on, I realized, no, no, it's way it's even more complex than that. And from Oppenheimer's perspective, his difficult is doubly hard because he's having to recruit. He has to get the single most talented people he possibly can and convince him to go to the middle of nowhere in a desert. So I'm going to read about that because I think the book the author describes is better than I could. the single most talented people he possibly can, and convince him to go to the middle of nowhere in a desert.

So I'm going to read about that because I think the book, the author describes it better than I could. Oppenheimer had compiled a primary list of people he wanted at Los Alamos, but he knew that considerable recruiting was still to be done and they would not be easy. The prospect of coming to Los Alamos aroused great misgivings. This is Oppenheimer now. It was to be a military post. Men were asked to sign up more or less for the duration of the war.

Restrictions on travel and on the freedom of families to move about would be severe. So what he does here, it's really smart. He's not pitching you a job. He's pitching you a mission. To overcome these objections, he had to frame the invitation as both a great scientific adventure and an act of patriotism. Groves believed that one of Oppenheimer's strongest talents was communicating and working with his scientific colleagues. And that's something that's important to point out.

Without Groves, they both needed each other. Their partnership is what allowed for the successful completion of the project. And if you take away one or the other, I don't think it happens. At least it doesn't happen as fast as it did and in the time it needed. I think the author even makes the case, and he's written a couple books on this, and he's seen a bunch of the classified material that the creation of this was inevitable. It just wouldn't have happened nearly as fast. So either the war continued on or maybe you have it a decade later, whatever the case was. So then we continue this idea that you and I talk about over and over again. It starts with the people, the talent of

the people you have that you're able to recruit to your company, to your division, to your team is more important than nearly anything else that you can possibly work on. And again, this is important. I mentioned this earlier, but other projects were happening at the same time. Yet this is the only one that would be successful. So it says Oppenheimer set out on long recruitment trips to attract the best people he could find. Recruitment was not an easy task. The Manhattan Project was brand new, somewhat nebulous, and shrouded in secrecy. There's a lot of like spy stuff that goes on in the book that was very fascinating to me. And I'll talk to you a little bit about that some i'll bring some of that to your attention later because it's

just gross was obsessed with secrecy i and wind up still having like russian spies um in the manhattan project some of some of which get away um and some of which get caught and wind up getting executed it's wild uh brand new so it's So it was brand new, somewhat nebulous, and shrouded in secrecy, and it was invisible to the academic world. That's the world that he's trying to recruit out of. It says the years a man spent at Los Alamos would not count towards later promotion

or tenure at the university. Although Oppenheimer had few budget constraints, indeed, the urgent demand for a bomb gave him a blank check. His preeminent concern, as he would later recall, always was personnel. And there's a lot of great direct quotes from Oppenheimer in this book. Here's one of them, and he's talking about why this was the most important problem he had to solve. The program of recruitment was massive, even though we then underestimated the ultimate

size of the laboratory, which was to have almost 4,000 members by the spring of 1945. And even though we did not at the time see clearly some of the difficulties, that's an understatement, which were to bedevil and threaten the enterprise. That's like any, I mean, they're talking about the Manhattan Project, but if you think about it, it's the beginning of any company or anything you're doing difficult. You're just, a lot of people people when you get to the end of their career, they're like, after they struggle for a long time, like if I knew how hard it was going to be at the beginning, I would never would have done it. So there is kind of some weird

benefit to a little bit of naivete, right? So it says, even though we did not at the time see clearly some of the difficulties which were to bedevil and threaten the enterprise, we knew that it was a big, complex and diverse job. Even the initial plan of the laboratory called for a start with more than 100 highly qualified and trained scientists to say nothing of the technicians, staff, and mechanics who would be required for their support and of the equipment they would have to beg and borrow since there would be no time to build it from scratch. We also had to recruit at a time when the country was fully engaged at war and almost every competent scientist was already involved in the military effort. And then the difficulty of recruiting talent is just mentioned over and over again throughout the

book. Finding talent is always the hardest problem to solve. Long after the war, Oppenheimer reflected that the last months of 1942 and 1943 had hardly enough hours to get Los Alamos established. The real problem had to do with getting to Los Alamos the men who would make a success of the undertaking. And one way to think about that is Groves and Oppenheimer were able to get the people that actually made a success of the undertaking, and all the projects that are happening at the same time failed to do that. I think it's just another example that people make all the difference. So moving ahead, let's get to, I left a note on this page for myself. It says, I think we can learn a lot about management from Groves. I think that's probably the main reason to read the book, actually. He saw that his new director, so

Oppenheimer is always going to, either going to be referred to as Oppie, Oppenheimer, or director. So when they refer to director, it's always Oppenheimer. He saw that his new director was struggling with the dual tasks of creating and staffing a new organization, as well as setting his priorities. Based on his own experience with large projects, Groves could see that Oppenheimer not only underestimated the number of scientists and engineers he needed, but that he had not yet grasped the full complexity of the task of making an entirely new kind of weapon. Even at this stage, it was clear to Groves that a hundred men and a few laboratory buildings was not going to be enough. Groves moved quickly, establishing a pattern. And this is what I mean, we can learn a lot from the way he manages his talent too. Oppenheimer being extremely smart and talented person. Groves moved quickly, establishing a pattern of assisting, mentoring, and gently prodding his director.

And it's interesting, which just popped to my mind too, is because they talk about this later in the book, but Groves is like, even at this stage, it's obvious. We can't do this with just 100 people in a few buildings. And you hear of other plans. I think there was one group in the Soviet Union that were trying to do this at the same time, and they had put resources of like 20 people.

It was like laughably small when you figure that not just the laboratory in Los Alamos, but all over the country, there's all these spread out like research laboratories that are helping. And then the production of materials, it gets over a hundred thousand people needed. The idea that you think you could throw 20 people at is laughable. But this idea where we can learn a lot from Groves management style, there is a book I did a long time ago. It's about the most influential retailer of all time because his ideas were used by people like Jeff Bezos, Sam Walton, Jim Senegal. His name is Sol Price. And he said something in that book that was fascinating.

And he says, you train an animal. You teach a human. And I really feel that's what Groves was doing. He's teaching Oppenheimer how to manage. There's also a great quote in that same book because Jim Senegal, the founder of Costco, was a, Sol Price was his mentor. And he says in that book, he's like, somebody asked him a question one time. He's like, oh, you must have learned a lot from Sol Price. He's like, no, no, no. I learned everything. Everything I know, I learned from Sol Price. And he used the lessons he learned to build Costco. And so he echoes what his mentor Sol Price said. This is Jim talking. And I he echoes what his mentor, Sol Price, said. This is

Jim talking. And I think this has a lot to do with Groves. If you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job. And so he's talking to the people that are the leaders of the team, whether it's an entire company, a division, whatever the case is, all your entire job is teaching, teaching, teaching. It says Oppenheimer was glad for the guidance. There was a quote in the Steve Jobs biography that I read for the last podcast. It says, some leaders push innovations by being good at the big picture. Others do so by mastering details. Jobs did both relentlessly. We see Groves has very similar tendencies. Groves and Oppenheimer were in daily communication, and the new director quickly learned that no item of business was too small for his army boss. Many of these

conversations were directly between Groves and Oppenheimer, but some calls to the director came from Jean O'Leary. This is Groves' secretary and right-hand person, and she's another person that kind of read Groves' mind and understand what he would actually want and be able to act in his place if he was busy. Oppenheimer quickly learned that a call from O'Leary was a call from Groves. It was an effective strategy on Groves' part, as if Groves had managed to clone himself. And so I think the unstated principle there was that the only way that you can find somebody, an effective number two or assistant is to spend a lot of time teaching them what's important to you how you think so they can make decisions in your absence something Oppenheimer does which is really smart is a way to attract the best talent you you

have to give them an opportunity no other company can and this is Elon talked about Elon Musk talked about this a lot where when he started SpaceX it easier to, because he picked such a hard, impossible mission that only SpaceX was doing at the time, it was easier to get the talent he needed because the really ambitious people that wanted to send humans to space to eventually go to Mars, they could only work for one company at the time. SpaceX was the only private company doing that,

or with the stated goal of doing that, right? So it says Oppenheimer made them feel special. This is Oppenheimer talking now. almost everyone realized that this was a great undertaking almost everyone knew that if that if it were completed successfully and rapidly enough it might determine the outcome of the war almost everyone knew that this job if it were achieved would be part of history this sense of excitement of devotion and of patriotism in the end prevailed. Very smart move there by Oppenheimer. Moving on, this is more on Groves. And so you get the sense that Groves had very little self-tout, was convinced that he was right, and he also had an unbelievable amount of energy

and stamina. He was willing to push longer and harder than anyone else. And so that led him to some, led some people to believe that he was just too hard. He was too much of a hard ass. And that came from his, he kind of looked down on people that move slow or that weren't as smart as he was. So it says Gross was repeatedly bothered by what he regarded as the outrageous behavior of the scientists and their families. To him, they seemed incapable of discipline and unaware that many other Americans as part of the war effort were doing with much less. Demands for babysitters, maids, better stoves and similar luxuries frustrated him. And I would say without a doubt.

And, you know, this this book has cameos of full of very smart, talented people that are in the history books. He is Groves is by far the most formidable individual in this entire book. I was blown away. So it says, once Leslie Groves accepted his new assignment, he embraced it completely. He's dedicated. He goes full speed and he has high energy. I don't know how he does this. From his appointment in September 1942 until the end of the war, he worked at full speed,

often 14 hours a day or more. His remarkable energy and stamina frequently exhausted those who worked and traveled with him. And so he's also describing to us like why he felt he had no choice but to be that way, to have one speed, go, all out. My mission was given to me by Secretary of War Stimson. It was to produce the atomic bomb at the earliest possible date so as to bring the war to a conclusion. This is really, really smart, actually. You're going to see me.

I guess I'm going to say that a lot today. Every day matters. And it's very hard for us to actually apply that. We understand. Yes, we have a limited amount of days. If I can get something accomplished today sooner, it's better than I can do it than if I did it later. But actually, not just like as a like a thought or an idea, but the actual application. He's going to get into the fact that we're not losing a single damn. We're not losing a single damn day here. Every day matters. So he says, you know, they I had to produce the my job was to produce the atomic bomb at the earliest date possible date. So to bring the war to a conclusion that was further emphasized by his statement that any time that a single day could be saved, I should save that day. Imagine how much we could accomplish if we actually lived like this. The instructions to the project were that any individual in the project who felt that the ultimate completion was going to be delayed by as much as a day by something that was happening. It was his duty to report it directly to me. Urgency was on us right from the start. Now we're going to see Groves from Oppenheimer's perspective. And so I just made a bullet point list about Groves. Everything he's about to tell us. Groves is blunt, forceful,

rough, wicked smart, hired only A players, developed a clear organizational structure, disdained stupidity and sloppiness, and was open to criticism. Oppenheimer came to see Groves as an extremely intelligent man who quickly grasped many of the intricacies of physics, chemistry, and explosives and did homework to learn more. His personality could be jarring and his tongue was often sharp, but there was no doubting his intelligence and his capacity for getting things done. Groves' management style reflected his experiences in the military.

He learned early on to look for the best people and companies and to hire them. Lines of authority were clear. He was energetic and forceful and very blunt. He was a good judge of people. This is all Oppenheimer on Groves. Groves could also be flexible in his dealings with people. While he had no tolerance for error or stupidity, he tolerated disagreement from subordinates. Groves took great care. I've already repeated this, but it's worth noting again. Groves took great care to treat Oppenheimer with respect

and deference, and Oppenheimer return the favor. And let's go back to the idea that Groves understood the importance of teaching everybody, like teaching Oppenheimer how to manage and to deal with people. And then also, which is really interesting, I guess the point I'm going to bring to your attention right now is Groves realized that you need, like your self-image is extremely important. And like sometimes a self-image is the limiting factor in your achievement. And so his job was, I'm going to hype up Oppenheimer and try to increase his self-confidence because he's attempting to do something

extremely difficult and something he has no experience trying to do. Groves sensed the lack of confidence early on and tried to bolster Oppenheimer when he could. And so this is Oppenheimer's friend and coworker talking about Oppenheimer expressing like his insecurity and so this is Oppenheimer's friend and co-worker talking about Oppenheimer expressing like his insecurity and his self-doubt to his friend that Groves had already picked up. Oppenheimer, I don't think ever said this to Groves. So this is his friend,

Oppenheimer's friend, Robert, and his name's Robert too, that's confusing. Oppenheimer's friend talking about what Oppenheimer told him. Robert often expressed privately his real doubts about his suitability for the director's job and his or before Oppenheimer could actually, like his self-doubt could actually get in way of the successful completion of the project. Another thing about Groves, he's now, you know, I think he's almost 50 years old when the project's going on. He had spent his life in the military. Everybody that runs across him thinks he's competent. He's got an amazing amount of contacts with people he's developed over a long period of time. And really, this is what I'm about to tell you. This is an example of the importance of cultivating relationships.

Having the right relationships can be entirely crucial. As it turned out, the nation's leading expert on spark plug porcelain was working on a project at General Motors. When all attempts to convince GM to make this man available for a few days failed, Oppenheimer asked Groves to intercede. The general immediately placed a call to Henry DuPont, to make this man available for a few days failed Oppenheimer asked Groves to intercede the general immediately placed a call to Henry DuPont who was on the GM board of directors and he knew whom he knew personally I told him that my people had asked General Motors for this expert and were

turned down on the grounds that this man was just overwhelmingly busy Groves insisted the man he does this multiple times throughout the project where they'll run into a is it just remarkable removing uh any kind of block anything blocking his team it's just remarkable grows was able to do this grows insisted the man was even more crucial to work at los alamos 30 minutes later dupont called back and said the expert was ready to go he does this later on where like there'd be like a really important piece of equipment they need find out oh the u.s government sold it to like the argentine government and crow somehow gets the the sale reversed he just he just really really impressive how he put his full attention on a problem and was relentless in making sure it was solved he could also be extremely ruthless so

he was obsessed with secrecy a reporter winds up leaking that there's a secret experiment run by the government. This is in 1944, right? No one knows what's what's going on. And he leaks it into the newspaper. And so Groves, he tries to get to I'm just gonna read to you. Groves considered the guy's name is rapper. Groves apparently considered drafting rapper and sending him to the pacific so he's like okay you know there's the the draft is in full effect so he's like i'm gonna put this guy's name make sure he gets drafted and for for payback of what he did i'm gonna have him sent to the pacific you know that didn't happen because but the report and

this is a reporter he's doing this too keep in mind but the reporter turned out to be in his 60s and so this is more about why Oppenheimer needed Grove and Grove needed Oppenheimer Oppenheimer uh for all his talents Oppenheimer was prone to hesitate in making critical decisions Grove did not have that problem Oppenheimer feared failure he was brilliant but he was not a strong character he was indecisive and definitely not a fighter if you if he couldn't persuade you he'd cave in especially to group opposition groves on the other hand could provide him with a strong backbone in the form of consistent policy and so the book goes into great detail about how crazy it was that they're trying to build this state-of-the-art factory and laboratory in the middle of nowhere and so i mentioned this earlier i was like no it's kind of like having to build a factory before you build a company i was like no that's that's not the right

way to think about it it's like having to build a city before you have you can build a factory before you can start building a company the the complexity and it's just i mean think about it now that you the people you're recruiting to to work for you they have to bring their families like so you it says they had to design like temporary schools they have to bring their families. It says they had to design temporary schools. They had to figure out curriculum for the kids. They had to figure out how to get water. Schooling for the children was another early challenge. A school had to be built.

Teachers hired and a curriculum planned. Water was a constant problem. There was either too little or too much. When it rained, remember in the desert, the streets turned to mud, forcing many drivers to abandon their cars until the streets dried out. Water pipes would freeze in the desert, the streets turned to mud, forcing many drivers to abandon their cars until the streets dried out. Water pipes would freeze in the winter. When water was available, it was occasionally too heavily chlorinated. Sometimes residents had to haul their water from trucks parked in front of the hospital,

taking care to know which water was potable and which was only suitable for flushing toilets. And then you add on the difficulty of having to build an entire civilization from scratch is the fact that the work you're doing is extremely dangerous. You need edgewalkers. The edgewalker is a name that when I read Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, his autobiography, when he was friends with Bill Gates in high school. company his mom warned paul allen's like you got to be careful around bill gates because bill gates is an edge walker and that was defined as somebody that was comfortable testing how dangerous something was going up to the very edge in hopes that you don't like cross the line and actually cause harm to yourself or cause the company to go bankrupt or whatever the case was i think one of the examples she uses the fact that bill would when he was a young kid he would figure out he would he would have a he'd be competitive not a kid, I guess he's probably like 19, oh, he's 1920, so a young person. When Microsoft was still in New Mexico, actually, he would see how fast he could drive back and see

his parents back in Washington, if I'm not mistaken. And so they'd drive through the night, and I think at this point, Bill Gates had already started collecting Porsches and, you know, never get below 100 miles an hour. So anyways, this idea of edge walkers, you also need like you're you need you're recruiting people for people for a job that could potentially kill them. Several people do die dealing with radiation and these experiments. So this is because little so little was known about handling large quantities of uranium and plutonium, and much less about critical masses, experimentation with these materials required a certain devil-may-care attitude. And the book goes into detail about when people do die, how it's even worse because they know they're going to die. So they'll be exposed, realize they made a mistake, you know, have some kind of burns or whatever the case case is but it might take up to like 30 days from the time that they're actually exposed to die

and in those and you know by day five or six you clearly know that you're done for and you're just waiting to die so it's it's uh rather gruesome uh there's a lot of pressure so they're they're having to speed at this point they've already recruited all the people they're doing the projects they have a couple different prototypes that they're working on. But as more time passes without a working bomb and the war is still going on, the pressure on Grove increases. And when the pressure on Grove increases, he in turn puts the screws to everybody else. It says, Groves' hugely expensive Manhattan Project existed for only one purpose, to deliver a weapon. And the pressure on the general to do so became relentless in 1945. The pressure, and it was remarkable because I'm reading the book, I knew that the

bombs were dropped in August of 1945. And yet you'll be in like January or February or March in the same year. It's like, how are they going to, how do they get this done over the next few months? And so part of that is the fact that Oppenheimer had a hard time making decisions, Groove did not. And so he starts to just, I'll get to this point, but instead of like, he still consults with Oppenheimer, but it's like, no, we're doing this. Let's go forward. So it says the pressure came not just from the military, but also from the Secretary of War and from President Roosevelt. That's FDR. The demand for accountability was growing. The urgency of the project was a result not only the billions of dollars being spent, but on the progress of the war itself. And this is the result. In the past, Groves usually negotiated deadlines with Oppenheimer, but now he gave the laboratory a specific delivery date. It was, in effect, an order. So what they were doing at the time, what Groves does is they have a bunch of different ideas and they're constantly twerking the designs of the thing of them as prototypes right and so he says that's it we have to ship we're freezing all designs so let's go from the we're not designing anymore

and we're moving into production and that's what i meant about the gap it's like it doesn't look like they're gonna get this done in 1945 and yet within the last few months they actually he freezes the designs makes them ship he's like we're going into production. Do not alter anything else. Move to the successful completion of the prototype. And this is a great one sentence summary of that. In one day, Groves had forced decisions that had been languishing for months. Two quick sentences that are happening on this that I think are two great ideas. Pursue multiple solutions to a problem simultaneously

until the problem is solved. This is something Grove does. And another thing Grove does, accept the unanticipated as normal. The dual approaches reflected Grove's belief in pursuing multiple solutions to problems. Grove's remained unflappable, accepting the unanticipated as normal. And he knows this because he's got a ton of experiments with large projects. And he talks about in the book, the larger something gets, the more unpredictable it gets, the more you have to just realize, I guess, what he just says. It's normal. The unanticipated becomes normal. So they get the prototype done, or they're about to get the prototype done. They're about to do their first test. This is going to happen at Trinity.

This gives you an idea of what I'm about to read to you. It's going to give you an idea of the work that required, the complexity, the secretness, and just the difficulty that this project demanded. And so it said, Williams and his men found their normal 10-hour working days extended to 18 hours a day. They were responsible for the thankless task of providing the necessary wiring, power, transportation, communication, and construction as daytime temperatures were rising. They completed most of Trinity's preparations in early May. They're going to do a test in July, along with the complete communication system that included telephone lines, a public address system. Remember, this is in the middle of nowhere. They're building all the infrastructure. They have to build all the infrastructure out. A public address system that would reach buildings and bunkers and FM radios

in most Jeeps and trucks assigned to the test. Groves does not play. Listen to what he does here. Further instructions governing the drive from Los Alamos to Trinity were issued. Under no circumstances are telephone calls or stops for gasoline to be made between Albuquerque and your destination. There was one exception. There was one approved stop. There's a stop at this place called Roy's Cafe. Why is this an approved stop? This is what I mean by Groves does not play. It was an approved stop at Roy's Cafe where Groves had placed one of his security men as a chef. of immense pressure. Not only are you doing something extremely difficult, you have everybody from external and internal adding additional pressure, but then you have the idea that the war is still not over, so every day that you don't complete this,

more people are dying. And so it just starts to mess with your mind. Oppenheimer recalled the atmosphere as the day of the test approach. And then there's a very rare possibility that you're going to fail. A lot of people thought that the test that they're going to do in Trinity,

which winds up being really successful, was going to be a failure. So it says, very shortly before the test of the first atomic bomb, people at Los Alamos were naturally in a state of tension. I remember one morning when almost the whole project was out of doors staring at a bright object in the sky. They were worried that maybe Germany or somebody else had beat them to the punch, right? So it's like, oh my God, what is this bright object in the sky? These are extremely intelligent scientists that are about to be worried about a mistake that is going to seem rather obvious to avoid. Right. So it says the director of personnel was an astronomer and a man of some human wisdom. And he finally came to my office and asked whether we should stop trying to shoot down Venus. I tell this story only to indicate that even a group of scientists is not proof

against the errors of suggestion and hysteria, Oppenheimer said. It was impossible to escape the realization that two years and three months of intense, frustrating, yet often exhilarating work would soon bear fruit in a desert 220 miles to the south. So they get to the test site. Everybody's freaking out. The weather's not cooperating. Oppenheimer's about to lose it. And this is where we see Groves leads from the front. He remains calm. He's the one making the decisions. I'll just read it to you. It says, there's another general there who was assigned to witness the test from the bunker, watched Groves do everything he could to calm Oppenheimer. The scene inside the shelter was dramatic

beyond words. For some hectic two hours preceding the blast, General Groves stayed with the director, that's Oppenheimer, walking with him and steadying his tense excitement. Every time Oppenheimer would be able to would be about to explode because of some something untoward happening, General Groves would take him off and walk with him in the rain,

counseling with him and reassuring him that everything would be all right. And so there's a bunch of debate. Should we do it? Like the weather might not be clear enough. And this is again where Groves, Groves was the the one who gave who had to give the final word he had the ability to endure more than others that he's working with and another great thing i think we could learn from him he was able to to be calm when others were not and so this is grove writing about and it says he somewhat disingenuously says that oppenheimer had participated in the decision making this is a third party saying, no, this is gross. So Groves captured the last 10 hours before the test.

And this is Groves writing. He's going to use military time here, obviously. After about one hour of sleep, I got up at 0100. And from that time on until about five, I was with Dr. Oppenheimer constantly. Naturally, he was nervous, although his mind was working at its usual extraordinary efficiency. I devoted my entire attention to shielding him from the excited and generally faulty advice of his assistants, who were more than disturbed by their excitement. So they're excited. They're emotional. Motion blurs judgment. Groves is calm. So he says he's getting bad advice because they're excited and they're worried about the uncertain weather conditions.

By 0330, we decided that we could probably fire by 0530. By 0400, the rain had stopped, but the sky was still overcast. Our decision became firmer as time went on. During most of these hours, the two of us journeyed from the control house out into the darkness to look at the stars and to assure each other that one or two visible stars were becoming brighter so the test is successful i want to pull out the react the reactions there's going to be i'm going to give you groves reaction oppenheimer's reaction and some other people that are there it's hilarious to me how groves is just even after this like just dead cold groves turned silently to shake hands oppenheimer is famous for his reaction oppenheimer

recalled the words of the bhavagat bhavagat gita i am become death the destroyer of worlds that is some eerie thing to say i mean obviously accurate if these these weapons are ever used on a mass scale it's it's a way to ensure that you know humans render themselves extinct but that idea where he that came to mind i am become death the destroyer of worlds uh there's gonna i'm gonna omit the names because it's not important just give you some more give you an insight into the other uh some other reactions at the test site uh this one guy saw it as a grand finale of a mighty symphony because this is a beautiful words that this guy was able to conjure up he saw it as a grand finale of a mighty symphony of the elements fascinating and terrifying uplifting and crushing ominous devastating full of great promise and great foreboding

and then this might be my favorite one this is another guy who comes up with something that's just an insane thought it occurred to him later that at the end of the world in the last millisecond of the earth's existence the last men will see what we saw so then president truman makes the decision it's his decision to use the the brahms that they, that Oppenheimer and Groves created. We know how that ends. And the war's over. Suddenly it was gone. The nearly impenetrable veal of secrecy was torn away.

Overnight, Americans learned that it had atomic bombs and the huge industrial plants and secret mountain laboratory that made them. It learned about the determined general and the cerebral conflicted scientists who led the team that designed the bomb, and about the hundreds of thousands of ordinary men and women who helped along the way. As intriguing as the vast, mysterious enterprise that culminated in the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, to most Americans, it meant only one thing. An end to the war. The long, costly conflict that had laid waste to nations and consumed so many lives was at last over. For Groves and Oppenheimer, the end of the war brought enormous relief, sweetened by success, as well as a new set of challenges. The issues Groves faced was far more

daunting. What was to become of the extraordinary network of industrial plants, laboratories, and communities he had so energetically built and then artfully managed? Listen to the scope here. Almost 150,000 men and women were employed in 33 Manhattan Project installations on 550,000 acres with an annual payroll of almost $200 million. And then a few pages later, it says, a press release went out shortly after Hiroshima describing the general. A soft-spoken general with a flair for the impossible emerged today from the shadows of army-imposed anonymity

to be revealed as the driving force behind a $2 billion calculated risk, which he directed to successful completion in three years as one of the world's greatest scientific and engineering achievements, the large-scale tapping of the energy within atoms to produce a new weapon of war. And so once the war was over, it was going to be obvious that the Manhattan Project was going to be changed. They're still going to have to develop weapons. They'll keep improving them. But Oppenheimer wasn't going to stick around for that. Eventually, it's transferred to another, like the Atomic Commission or Atomic Agency, I can't remember the name. But Groves is going to stick around a little bit longer than Oppenheimer is. Oppenheimer

is going to leave, but he points out something that was really interesting that he learned about management from Groves. And so they're having this discussion. It's like, okay, well, who's going to replace Oppenheimer? Maybe we should have like two or three people. And the conclusion that Oppenheimer arrives at here, I would say that I've derived a similar conclusion from studying and reading all these biographies and studying all these leaders and founders. And so this is what Oppenheimer says. Oppenheimer insisted that Los Alamos should have one director. He had learned enough about management from studying Groves to believe that while consensus was important, an organization needed a single leader. So he's telling, he's on the phone telling Groves' clone, his assistant O'Leary this.

And this is interesting. O'Leary noted on the call sheet that she had never heard Oppenheimer feel so strongly about any other matter. And that's what he felt so strongly about is that an organization needs a single leader. It's very interesting. It says he had learned enough about management from studying Groves to believe that while consensus was important, an organization needed a single leader. And then the author does a great job of wrapping this up with another observation that I think becomes apparent when you study some of the great minds of history is the fact that all these people, they think differently in the same way. The extraordinary working relationship between Oppenheimer and Groves came quietly to an end. Both had served each other and the nation well.

They would not lose contact with one another altogether, but the electrifying meetings, the intimate daily contact, the deferential, often eloquent, sometimes terse letters and phone calls would dwindle to an occasional exchange. Would the program to develop an atomic bomb have been as successful without Groves and Oppenheimer? Yes, in time. There were other capable military officers to build industrial plants and scientific laboratories and oversee the momentum effort, but it is unlikely that without Groves and Oppenheimer, the program would have succeeded as quickly and as magnificently as it did. Groves was unique in his combination of experience,

ruthless drive, intelligence, and ability to make tough decisions. Oppenheimer's keen mind, his matchless ability to synthesize problems and solutions, and his power to gather talented men around him and inspire them were incomparable. They were very different in personality and background, but what made their collaboration so fruitful was an acceptance of who they were and the times in which they lived. They rose to the occasion as professionals, as human beings, and as Americans. The war brought them together, and with their shared strengths and weaknesses, intelligence, ambition, arrogance, trust, mutual appreciation, the willingness to use the other to gain what he wanted,

a readiness to occasionally break the rules, and not least, a deep patriotism, they forged success. It was not their differences that shaped history, but their similarities. And that is where I'll leave it. For the full story, I highly recommend reading the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes in your podcast player,

you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 215 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.