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J. Robert Oppenheimer

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6
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2021-11-09
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2021-11-09
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1
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  1. “While consensus was important, an organization needed a single leader. So he's telling that he's on the phone telling Groves' clone, his assistant O'Leary this, and this was interesting. O'Leary noted on the call sheet that she had never heard Oppenheimer feel so strongly about any other matter. 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.”

    2021-11-09 · Founders · #215: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (The General and the Genius) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “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 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 what Oppenheimer, 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”

    2021-11-09 · Founders · #215: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (The General and the Genius) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “That Argbata 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 two hundred twenty miles to the south.”

    2021-11-09 · Founders · #215: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (The General and the Genius) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So, I got to read something else to you. This is Oppenheimer talking about because you have to, at this point in the story, this is over two years straight 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 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 tests that are going to do intrinity, 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 they're like, oh my God, what is this bright object in the sky? These are extremely intelligent scientists.”

    2021-11-09 · Founders · #215: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (The General and the Genius) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Draft is in full effect, so he's like, I'm gonna put this guy's name, make sure he gets drafted, and for payback at what he did, I'm gonna have him sent to the Pacific. That didn't happen because, but the report, and this is a reporter he's doing this to, keep in mind, but the reporter turned out to be in his 60s. So, this is more about why Oppenheimer needed Grove and Grove needed Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer, 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 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.”

    2021-11-09 · Founders · #215: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (The General and the Genius) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Oppenheimer when he could. 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 never, I don't think he ever said this to Groves. So this is his 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 concern as to whether he could do, he could really do it. In a sense, he was riding the tiger and he felt very heavily pressed by the many problems of the project. So that was smart on Grove's part picking up on that and then finding a solution before any damage was done or before Oppenheimer could actually like hisself could actually get in way of the successful completion of the project. Another thing about Groves, he's now, I think he's almost 50 years old when the project's going on. He had spent his life in the military.”

    2021-11-09 · Founders · #215: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (The General and the Genius) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source