IBM: Has the Time Come to Again Parachute In an Outsider?

 For IBM, observes influential The Wall Street Journal, there are:

" ... discussions on Wall Street about whether IBM should be broken apart or an activist investor will come hunting for Big Blue."

Seems IBM can't find its footing in the AI era. Among its challenges are its legacy businesses such as mainframes and software. 

But, in addition to what the WSJ suggests, another option for catching up and maybe even leading, is to bring in an outsider. That happened in the beginning of the 1990s when upstarts Microsoft and Apple were eating IBM's lunch, dinner and breakfast. That outsider had been Lou Gerstner. He essentially taught the elephant to get off the ground and even dance. CEO John Akers stepped down.

Current insider Arvind Krishna has been with IBM since 1990. He joined as a software engineer and then was appointed to the CEO role in 2020. 

After Gerstner restored the corporation's confidence, innovation and growth it defaulted back to sticking with insiders. Not only that. Unlike OpenAI, they were "older." Before Krishna, who was born in 1962 and is now 63, CEO Ginni Rometty was a Boomer. She had been born in 1957. Meanwhile technology had been mutating rapidly. The new upstarts included OpenAI and Anthropic. Microsoft and Apple now have their own struggle with maintaining positions in the front lines.

From having worked full-time at IBM and later as a consultant I observed this: There seems to be in its DNA smugness. Instead of healthy insecurity there's blind belief in what it's up to and how it's doing that. You know: The IBM Way. That can stuff sand in the gears which operate in the now. 

When IBM conducts its official investor call on July 22nd, there could be yet another crash in the stock price. Meanwhile, employees who bought the stock should be in terror. Also negatively impacted could be the hold on their jobs.

In coaching, I warn: Never get comfortable. Course correct rapidly. Forget sunk costs. 

Career Paths? So Over. It’s about Earning a Good Living. No matter what.

Complimentary consultation. No Pressure. Street-smart Guidance. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

America Not Hiring in 2026: Back to Golden Age of Solopreneurs?

 For hiring, 2025 was a brutal year to search for a job. The Wall Street Journal reports that 2026 could be worse: "At a gathering of CEOs in Midtown Manhattan this month organized by the Yale School of Management, 66% of leaders surveyed said they planned to either fire workers or maintain the size of their existing teams next year. Only a third indicated they planned to hire." The WSJ adds that pullback from adding manpower could be temporary. But given shareholders' demand for cost-efficiency and the continual improvements in AI, chronic unemployment could become standard. However, there is a solution. An old-fashioned one. That's becoming a solopreneur, that is setting up your own business without partners or employees. The model dates back to ancient times.  The golden age of the solo business owner in America had been from the late 1800s to about the mid 1920s.  There had been a wave of immigrants, discrimination against them and few jobs. They drove pushcarts ...
Read more

An Equity Partner in Big Law, But Not a Star: Expect a Pay Cut This Year

It's nothing new. Law firms chase star talent and pay premium compensation for those twinklers. Way back in 2021, Paul, Weiss' Brad Karp hammered in Bloomberg Law  the critical importance of that star power. Law firms which don't have the financial resources to recruit, hold and motivate them could stop growing, going out of business.  What is new are these current realities: the current frenzy of the chase and annual compensation reaching $40 million.  Well, equity partners who aren't stars will help pay for that payout. Law.com  predicts haircuts for some of them this year. There always had been a caste system in Big Law, a niche in which prestige is an embedded value. Never were all equity partners equal. It had been standard to de-equitize those not cutting it or even force them out. A strategy of shaming usually was effective to get them to exit.  Now, it's more brutal. Already the number of equity partners is being reduced. That's to ensure top dollar fo...
Read more

Newly Minted PhDs in Economics Face Unwelcoming Job Market: Of Course, I Left My PhD in Humanities Off the Resume

Monitor postings on Reddit subunits focused on careers and it's no longer news that PhDs, both newly minted and those already in the labor market, generally are finding the credential an obstacle in the search for a job or even contract assignments. No, not an asset.  Let's cut to the chase. The highly educated have to get smart about this, fast. With some exceptions, I advise those I coach to leave the PhD off job-search materials. The negative assumptions among those hiring range from that you expect too much money to you'll be a know-it-all.  When my boutique collapsed post-9/11 and I had to land a survival job I lopped off everything but the BA. At the interview I dumbed-down my vocabulary. Sure Harvard was started in 1636 but America remains anti-intellectual. In addition, the integration of AI into strategy and operations makes knowledge work in general less and less marketable.  That's the narrative of our times: Advanced degrees having low or no ROI. The result,...
Read more