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Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

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Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#161

Post by rst »

ghaff wrote: post #143
rst wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decision was in the hands of a board whose sole legal goal, these days, is securing maximal financial return for shareholders (and the shareholders agreed -- there was an explicit vote). A soul is a luxury that companies don't usually get to keep past IPO.

Sole? No. No matter how many times people repeat it. Or, at least, companies can and do spend money on things that can be argued to be in service of the long-term profit and image of the company. Otherwise, how could a company do charitable giving? That said, if someone makes an offer for a public company, the board does pretty much need to put it to a shareholder vote although they can negotiate for a higher price a…

"long-term profit" is the long-term financial returns to shareholders -- and corporate philanthropy is generally held to be justified in B-school circles only in so far as it builds up marketable goodwill (again, adding shareholder value), not for its own sake.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#162

Post by amelius »

odiroot wrote: post #157
dvh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "I" in FAANG stands for IBM

IBM should definitely have a place there. Netflix is the one that's not like the others.

And where is the M for Microsoft? The acronym doesn't make much sense if you ask me.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#163

Post by ghaff »

avereveard wrote: post #152
jodrellblank wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I'm concerned, the term "PC" comes from the "IBM PC"[1] > " The PC was IBM's first attempt to sell a computer through retail channels [...] they partnered with the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears Roebuck " > " Reception was overwhelmingly positive [...] the IBM PC immediately became the talk of the entire computing industry.[38] Dealers were overwhelmed with orders [...] By the time the machine was shi…

> It is worth noting how small the market was at the time though, "In 1983 they sold more than 750,000 machines" - Apple has just passed 100,000,000 iPhone 12s in six months since launch. which is the goddamn point. it was a name in tech circles, and this community forgets how small tech circles were back then heck, someone even cited the cell processor in playstation. outside the nerdiest of gamers, very few actuall…

In 1970, IBM was #5 on the Fortune 500. Now, a young kid might not have heard of them because they never saw the logo on anything or used any of their products. But I'm pretty sure any reasonably well-educated adult [ADDED: or college student/probably teen] would have heard of them just like they would have heard of most of the largest US companies.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#164

Post by dobsonj »

pengaru wrote: post #136
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #95

I was considering applying to Red Hat and was assured by the fact that IBM put Jim in charge. Now that I see this I'm reconsidering Red Hat as a company.

My connections at RedHat say nothing has changed for them, and that RedHat is not IBM. But Jim leaving does make it look less likely that IBM will be turning into RedHat anytime soon. From what I'm told RedHat continues operating as an independent business unit under IBM. Edit: full disclosure; I too am considering RedHat, as I'd like to resume full-time work on systemd/journald in the future and there aren't exactly…

They do indeed feel like 2 completely different companies. Different hiring processes, different employment contracts, different cultures, different offices, different tools, different management structures, different benefits. The biggest change I've seen is that they now trade under the same ticker symbol.

Source: former IBMer, current Red Hatter

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#165

Post by twiddling »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #67
avereveard wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM portfolio isn't targeted to consumers like Apple's or other companies, even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name. The only consumer facing product they had for the longest time were cash registers, and those aren't particularly hip as to live in consumer imagination Edit: in today episode, hacker news forget they're a niche cohort.

The IBM Thinkpad was probably the most well known laptop brand for 10-15 years. Even now I would guess people still equate “Thinkpad” with IBM even though they sold it off to Lenovo 15 years ago.

As an IBMer at the time, I remember having conversations about how that decision would ultimately doom IBM to irrelevance since it would remove IBM entirely from the consumer market...

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#166

Post by ghaff »

rst wrote: post #161
ghaff wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sole? No. No matter how many times people repeat it. Or, at least, companies can and do spend money on things that can be argued to be in service of the long-term profit and image of the company. Otherwise, how could a company do charitable giving? That said, if someone makes an offer for a public company, the board does pretty much need to put it to a shareholder vote although they can negotiate for a higher price a…

"long-term profit" is the long-term financial returns to shareholders -- and corporate philanthropy is generally held to be justified in B-school circles only in so far as it builds up marketable goodwill (again, adding shareholder value), not for its own sake.

At that point though, just about any reasonable actions can be justified even if they're not in the interests of immediate quarter earnings per share. And that's not what most people arguing that the board is legally required to maximize profits are talking about.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#168

Post by gonehome »

ghaff wrote: post #160
gonehome wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I'm in favor of founder controlled shares (Founder's Fund companies tend to do this - Zuckerberg at FB). Founder's retain total voting control of the company and can do what they think is in the best interest of the company. The board can complain and vote against it in favor of stupid short-term decisions that harm in the company, but in the end Zuck can tell them to fuck off and buy instagram because he…

While I don't completely disagree, a Benevolent (or not) Dictator For Life can have it's own set of problems. And I'd not that it's generally not considered a great governance model for large open source projects--though that's obviously a somewhat different situation.

I agree founder led companies are more like dictatorships (though feudal earldoms may be a better analogy?), this becomes less true in older companies no longer lead by a founder. I agree there’s risk (founder could lose touch or go crazy), but I think that risk is less likely than bad board decisions by non-founders. It’s also bounded a bit by the ability to retain high quality talent.

I also agree that for collaborative open source projects a different approach is often preferable (as well as governments too obviously).

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#169

Post by wrs »

Ryder123 wrote: post #154
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were acquired by their old boss so less of a culture clash and no need for turf wars between opposing sides.

Steve Jobs had been gone for 12 years, there was plenty of culture clash and turf wars. Steve just managed to prevail. When he returned, the workforce was pampered and attached to projects that weren't going anywhere. Steve removed a number of perks, and killed some of the biggest, most internally popular projects (Newton and OpenDoc come to mind). Lot's of people left. But Steve came back to Apple as a savvy politic…

Minor correction: I wouldn’t call Newton an “internally popular product”. At least, working on Newton I didn’t feel that way. And just before SJ came back, Apple had spun Newton out into a separate company because it wasn’t really fitting in. SJ spun it back in and killed it.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#170

Post by decodebytes »

pengaru wrote: post #136
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #95

I was considering applying to Red Hat and was assured by the fact that IBM put Jim in charge. Now that I see this I'm reconsidering Red Hat as a company.

My connections at RedHat say nothing has changed for them, and that RedHat is not IBM. But Jim leaving does make it look less likely that IBM will be turning into RedHat anytime soon. From what I'm told RedHat continues operating as an independent business unit under IBM. Edit: full disclosure; I too am considering RedHat, as I'd like to resume full-time work on systemd/journald in the future and there aren't exactly…

I am at RH right now, engineering. Things have really not changed. I will be honest I am a little nervous that Jim has left, but I think on the whole it's still a great place to work right now. In 3-5 years , who knows?
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