"Biography as a measure of business complexity. Pierre Bézier’s career at Renault’s (1933-1975) and the contrast between an engineer’s creative projects and the management of a firm"

My paper will present the case-study of Pierre Bézier (1910-1999) a former student-engineer of the Écoles des arts et métiers then of the École supérieure d’électricité who spent his entire career (1933-1975) as a key innovator in the Renault car company. Bézier was alternately the architect of an original form of electromechanical automation (1947), a pioneer in Europe of digital control (1958), and last, one of the world founders of industrial computing (1966). The “Bézier curves and surfaces” are the roots of Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing (CADM) that have reorganized industrial drawing, mass production and our virtual world. Why has this key engineer remained an “unknown celebrity”? Why couldn’t the Renault automobile company cope - over the long run - with the successive disruptions introduced by one of its most inventive engineer ? And on another side, why didn’t Pierre Bézier decide to leave his firm and start a new business. What made it so uncertain to become the entrepreneur of his own inventions.
By comparing the company's archives with the engineer’s personal documents, the paper measures the fate of a brilliant electromechanical innovator by the yardstick of his factory’s transformations. It shows how the story of a person can renew our understanding of the past of a firm. How can a biography serve a better historical understanding of business complexity.