IBM CEO in damage control mode after AI job loss comments

rivalary , 8 months ago

This company famously stopped being loyal to its employees back in the 90s.

CmdrShepard , 8 months ago

About the same time they stopped being relevant too. This is another one of those great American zombie companies that continues to live on simply based off inertia from successes of decades past.

andrewrgross , 8 months ago

I just want to say that this is absolute clown-level CEOing.

Let's just set aside the naked antipathy for labor concerns. Let's pretend we're heartless investors.

If I heard a CEO say this, my first thoughts would be:

• Why the fuck are you declaring an intention to remove people BEFORE the replacement is ready? If the technology is so ready, then deploy it and cut the workers after you've implemented it. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? This is sophomore level business shit. You sound like a 14 year old on Twitter.

• Why the fuck are you generating this kind of press? Particularly for a company with a FAMOUS history of loyalty to its workers? Even if it's now bullshit, you're pissing on the brand, asshole.

• Wasn't Watson a big famous over-hyped public embarrassment? Did you learn nothing about managing expectations?

• The work you say you're excited to replace is the core business services you sell, and I don't know what product you're talking about. OpenAI has a product. Explain why they're not about to devour your business while you're out here talking nonsense.

This guy sounds like a moron.

corsicanguppy , 5 months ago

FAMOUS history of loyalty to its workers

Never heard of this. Ever. Sarcasm?

andrewrgross , 5 months ago

No, I'm dead serious. This reputation is long dead, but back in the last century, before Jack Welch came along in the Reagan years and skull-f*cked the corporate world, it was a totally different time.

In the post-war years, IBM was famous as a company where the workers were treated like actual family. That's not necessarily a great thing, it's kind of creepy and patriarchal. But if you got a job there and did your work, after a decade or two, they'd keep you around even if your job became expendable or they knew they could hire a younger person to do it for less. It was just part of the corporate culture. Once you'd put in your time, you became a plant grandpa, and who fires grandpa when he's just trying to finish building up his pension?A heartless monster, that's who.

Those days are long gone, though. But from what I've heard and read, that used to actually be how this worked.