In his memoir, "Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science", Watson describes his academic colleagues as "dinosaurs," "deadbeats," "fossils," "has-beens," "mediocre," and "vapid." Steve Shapin in "Harvard Magazine" noted that Watson had written an unlikely "Book of Manners," telling about the skills needed at different times in a scientist's career; he wrote Watson was known for aggressively pursuing his own goals at the university. E. O. Wilson once described Watson as "the most unpleasant human being I had ever met", but in a later TV interview said that he considered them friends and their rivalry at Harvard "old history" (when they had competed for funding in their respective fields).