If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future

            Data and analytics are buzzwords that historians will associate with the era in which we are living through, being associated with the dominance of the internet and the growth of our technological society. It is almost a given today that any successful company needs to not only gather or utilize data in some way, but actively advertise themselves as effective users of that data to showcase how “cutting edge” they truly are. Stock prices rise and fall every day on the basis of these perceptions. However, this data addiction is far older than many realize, and if you are like me, a story that details a clear link between the present and the past makes for an irresistible read. If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future is the tale of the first true computer driven data and analytics company in American history, in an era well before today’s societal obsession began. The spectacular rise and quick collapse of Simulmatics may serve as a warning to us today, or it may just be one hell of a story. 

Author Jill Lepore tells the story of a group of social scientists who in 1959 founded what they believed to be an earth shattering company, one that would disrupt the near future and alter the behavior of companies and the government as a whole. The men and women behind Simulmatics may have been overzealous, but there was a kernel of truth in their wild assumptions. These individuals, mathematicians and social scientists by training, saw that data could be used to predict the future, or at least make educated guesses on the outcomes of future events. Leveraging the computing technology rolling out from IBM (initially the 704 housed at Columbia University), the team developed something they referred to as “the People Machine”, and promised it would be as revolutionary as it sounded. Punch cards, proprietary algorithms, and long hours crunching numbers promised the ability to win wars, elections, and customers. This appeared to be an incredible innovation, a strange convergence of psychology, advertising, math, and magic. In reality, these dreamers did not set the world on fire as they intended, and the company was beset with personality clashes and infighting. The strange cohort spent summers together on Long Island within a geodesic dome, with copious cocktails being consumed and wives often changing hands. If it sounds like something out of Mad Men, that’s because it kind of was. 

While not conventionally productive, that does not mean the group did not find themselves in interesting situations with a chance for success. The Kennedy campaign hired the company in the fall of 1960 in preparation for the famed Kennedy/Nixon debates and the intense final months of the campaign. What did the People Machine produce? A report detailing the impact JFK’s catholicism had on  different voter groups, essentially implying that the worst of the damage was done and Kennedy could seek to rebuild trust with these voters, the risk of alienating them being already gone. Kennedy did heed that advice, tackling the issue head on, but it is unclear how much Simulamtics’ work really contributed to that decision. However, the confidence it gave the young company spurred them to branch out into many other endeavors. In 1966, Simulmatics was on the ground in Saigon crunching numbers for the Army, trying to make sense of the chaos and implement an effective strategy. History unfolding the way it did, the People Machine did solve the “mystery” of our ineffectiveness in Vietnam, Walter Cronkite famously declaring the war a “stalemate” in early 1968. Political campaigns and geopolitics are just two of the interesting sectors the organization found themselves involved with during the 1960s, finding its way into many of the signature elements or events of the decade. The Simulmatics Corporation was both misguided and mismanaged, succumbing to bankruptcy in 1970, and until the publication of this book, historical obscurity. These revelations from Lepore give me both comfort and pause, comfort that the breakneck pace technology appears to be moving at was just as discombobulating sixty years ago as it is today, and pause due to the fact that the Simulmatics house of cards eventually collapsed. Is our own technology industry, and thus the American economy, in a similarly precarious situation today? I would like to think not, that the usefulness and limitations of data driven decision making is well fleshed out, but whenever large sums of money are at stake, one can never be too certain.