IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-30/ibm-names-arvind-krishna-as-ceo-rometty-to-retire-at-year-s-end
157 comments
IBM is a consulting company that tries to sell some of their cloud to their clients and some of their buzzwords to their investors. Normal silicon valley stuff, except that IBM manages to show up with some positive cash flow at the end of the day, unlike modern VC darlings.
> except that IBM manages to show up with some positive cash flow at the end of the day, unlike modern VC darlings
Comparing IBM to a VC funded startup doesn't make any sense to me. Big old tech companies (like IBM) in Silicon Valley mostly do turn a profit, some quite a bit more than IBM.
Comparing IBM to a VC funded startup doesn't make any sense to me. Big old tech companies (like IBM) in Silicon Valley mostly do turn a profit, some quite a bit more than IBM.
True. A fun fact: most also turned profit pre-IPO. Look up old S-1's.
I was just joking about the buzzword mumbo jumbo. I want someone to take me for an AI ride in a self driving cloud. I already had so many social network and Uber-for-X rides, those days were cool.
Does your mom do fintech, too? That's sooo cool!
I was just joking about the buzzword mumbo jumbo. I want someone to take me for an AI ride in a self driving cloud. I already had so many social network and Uber-for-X rides, those days were cool.
Does your mom do fintech, too? That's sooo cool!
Heh, I actually agree with you on the buzzword mumbo jumbo. There's no doubt IBM can throw out meaningless buzzwordy phrases with SV's best.
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Startups consume cash to grow. Mature companies return cash to shareholders after the growth slows. Natural state of affairs.
> Sounds like IBM's strategy is going all in on buzzwords.
It has been for some time, which is sad because their flagship hardware still stands the test of time--I'm writing this on an old 10+ year old thinkpad.
When I worked there it was just that, buzzword laden marketing to entice their legacy customers try a tech which they could onboard on to their cloud product(s). It was disheartening as their Food Safety program had so much early-stage penetration from Multi-nationals that it could have done amazing things.
Sadly, it was entirely predictable but the thinkpad fan boy in me thought it could have prevailed.
It has been for some time, which is sad because their flagship hardware still stands the test of time--I'm writing this on an old 10+ year old thinkpad.
When I worked there it was just that, buzzword laden marketing to entice their legacy customers try a tech which they could onboard on to their cloud product(s). It was disheartening as their Food Safety program had so much early-stage penetration from Multi-nationals that it could have done amazing things.
Sadly, it was entirely predictable but the thinkpad fan boy in me thought it could have prevailed.
Your thinkpad probably isn't even an IBM product. Lenovo bought them in 2005 and they've done a much better job than IBM would have--IBM sold the division in the first place because they had no vision for it at all. They've been riding inertia since the 80s.
I know my models; I was staring at the massive IBM logo when I wrote that.
I swap between models throughout the day, and at the time I was on my X31, which was the last X series to be made by IBM and has the best keyboard of them all. I'm currently on an X61, and will move over to my 3rd gen X1 Carbon in a bit to get to work.
As I said, I'm a fan boy; I have another 20-something X series' stored away for parts and as backups, many of them X61s I thought I would update to X62/63s and resell, but never got around to it and now it may be too late.
I'm not saying Lenovo hasn't done an amazing job, I keep buying these things over anything else. But if I'm honest, those new Pinebooks are looking like my new daily drivers, I always wanted Open Hardware to be a thing, so I think I might join in.
I swap between models throughout the day, and at the time I was on my X31, which was the last X series to be made by IBM and has the best keyboard of them all. I'm currently on an X61, and will move over to my 3rd gen X1 Carbon in a bit to get to work.
As I said, I'm a fan boy; I have another 20-something X series' stored away for parts and as backups, many of them X61s I thought I would update to X62/63s and resell, but never got around to it and now it may be too late.
I'm not saying Lenovo hasn't done an amazing job, I keep buying these things over anything else. But if I'm honest, those new Pinebooks are looking like my new daily drivers, I always wanted Open Hardware to be a thing, so I think I might join in.
Quite a collection! Did you get them from a corporate selloff or something? You might already know this, but Lenovo had the rights to use the IBM logo on their ThinkPads for several years after the purchase, so there are a few models that have the big IBM lettering but are really Lenovo machines.
I'm also intrigued by Pinebooks and their open philosophy, but my tolerance for slow computers is low. I haven't used one yet, but System76 laptops seem like a good compromise between open hardware and modern performance.
I'm also intrigued by Pinebooks and their open philosophy, but my tolerance for slow computers is low. I haven't used one yet, but System76 laptops seem like a good compromise between open hardware and modern performance.
I bought most before, I made a standalone POS/encrypted communications device using upcycled X series thinkpads for my fintech startup. I bought the newer stuff when I got there using my employee discount, which wasn't as much as I would have liked, but was what made me buy new instead of used.
As you can see, YC has a lot of other Thinkpad nerds, you also see them a lot at CCC conferences as well, they're like the AK47 of hardware:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22214952
I can forgive less than optimal performance for ergonomics for specific tasks, long writing sessions on Libre Office doesn't require much performance so I like writing on that old machine because my fingers can type so effortlessly and require less spelling corrections--this is the model I used during my undergrad. I'm willing to give the Pine a shot and I'm keeping an eye on the new pre-order.
I have machines with specific OS' and hardware to keep me on task.
As you can see, YC has a lot of other Thinkpad nerds, you also see them a lot at CCC conferences as well, they're like the AK47 of hardware:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22214952
I can forgive less than optimal performance for ergonomics for specific tasks, long writing sessions on Libre Office doesn't require much performance so I like writing on that old machine because my fingers can type so effortlessly and require less spelling corrections--this is the model I used during my undergrad. I'm willing to give the Pine a shot and I'm keeping an eye on the new pre-order.
I have machines with specific OS' and hardware to keep me on task.
Yes. It’s only a wonder that she left out Watson.
Another Indian-born tech CEO? It's incredible. IBM joins Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Nokia, and Harman in this regard. Also, MasterCard and PepsiCo (until 2018). I wonder how much it's a cultural thing.
This is a biased, but honest observation that I'd like to share. I've been working for a big corp for about 5 years now. I was born in a SE Asian country and came to the US for college. I have worked with a lot of India-born people.
As a fellow foreigner and as an Asian, I can tell that more often than not Indian people are bolder and more aggressive in asking for what they want (e.g., one of my Indian colleague asked for salary raise and the permission to go back to India in December for a month every year as part of his negotiation when he applied and got offer from another company; what he told me was simple, "It's my responsibility to ask. It's my boss' task to refuse or accept.") On top of that, some (not everyone; some are meek/introvert like myself). Because of their boldness, Indian people seem to be more successful at making themselves more visible, which is very important in corporate culture to get ahead. On top of that, some of them are pretty clever at courting favor of their superiors and/or playing office politics. I have seen quite a few of my peers/acquaintances from India who climbed corporate ladder pretty fast, so I'm not surprised they are doing well in terms of representation in C-level roles.
As a fellow foreigner and as an Asian, I can tell that more often than not Indian people are bolder and more aggressive in asking for what they want (e.g., one of my Indian colleague asked for salary raise and the permission to go back to India in December for a month every year as part of his negotiation when he applied and got offer from another company; what he told me was simple, "It's my responsibility to ask. It's my boss' task to refuse or accept.") On top of that, some (not everyone; some are meek/introvert like myself). Because of their boldness, Indian people seem to be more successful at making themselves more visible, which is very important in corporate culture to get ahead. On top of that, some of them are pretty clever at courting favor of their superiors and/or playing office politics. I have seen quite a few of my peers/acquaintances from India who climbed corporate ladder pretty fast, so I'm not surprised they are doing well in terms of representation in C-level roles.
ALSO. the people you are describing are (I'm guessing) immigrants. Meaning they are a subset of people from their home country with the internal initiative, drive, and resources to move halfway around the world and make their way in a culture besides the one they grew up in
This is under appreciated. I spent significant time living and working in China and it’s HARD. I came back to the US with a MUCH deeper respect for any immigrants I work with. Everything is much more confusing and frustrating.
The language / the cultural barrier isn't as high as it is for an American living in China though. I've grown up speaking English and watching a lot of American / British movies and TV, reading a lot of english literature. I assume this is not the case for most Americans with Chinese culture.
There's definitely a culture shock when you first move here and are figuring stuff out - How do you order food at a subway or a chipotle? (not a big deal anymore given the explosion of these restaurants in India in the last few years). Why is called Cilantro and not Corinander? How do I get a phone when I don't have any credit history at all? What is a turn-pike?
There's definitely a culture shock when you first move here and are figuring stuff out - How do you order food at a subway or a chipotle? (not a big deal anymore given the explosion of these restaurants in India in the last few years). Why is called Cilantro and not Corinander? How do I get a phone when I don't have any credit history at all? What is a turn-pike?
I lived in both UK and Germany for about 4 years on each. My native language is Spanish (Mex) and I found it more difficult to adapt/blend with Britons than with Germans. Even though my English is Ok and my German is terrible...
> Why is called Cilantro and not Corinander?
You probably know this, but in the US Cilantro is the leaves and Coriander is the seeds of the same plant. Possibly because only the leaves are used in Mexican cooking, and a huge amount of US cuisine these days originates from Mexico, or pretends to.
You probably know this, but in the US Cilantro is the leaves and Coriander is the seeds of the same plant. Possibly because only the leaves are used in Mexican cooking, and a huge amount of US cuisine these days originates from Mexico, or pretends to.
I'm curious, what is a turn-pike?
It's how we geolocate in NJ. "Oh you live in Jersey too? What exit?"
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Parent is also an immigrant.
This feels somewhat strange. A more plausible explanation (one given in some of the sibling threads) is that most of these folks are immigrants, and simply being an immigrant tells you something about the nature of this groups of people.
But there is a twist: most of the immigrants from South Asia are also highly educated and here legally.
That is quite a powerful combination in itself. Considering the large population of India, there are bound to be a ton of smart, driven people that immigrate to the US. And in a system that doesn’t actively discriminate against them based on their race, they do well.
I am not sure why this is surprising. South Asia has a LOT of people. Many of them are well versed in English because colonialism. A small (but still significant) number of them emigrate to the US and do very well.
But there is a twist: most of the immigrants from South Asia are also highly educated and here legally.
That is quite a powerful combination in itself. Considering the large population of India, there are bound to be a ton of smart, driven people that immigrate to the US. And in a system that doesn’t actively discriminate against them based on their race, they do well.
I am not sure why this is surprising. South Asia has a LOT of people. Many of them are well versed in English because colonialism. A small (but still significant) number of them emigrate to the US and do very well.
Indian Brahmins (the traditionally educated class) mostly getting kicked out of the country and not finding space in its social hierarchy after imposing thousands of years of the untouchability/caste system on everyone else.
No other country had as many priests who were suddenly displaced from social hierarchy after their independence movement.
No other country had as many priests who were suddenly displaced from social hierarchy after their independence movement.
They're hardly getting kicked out. They still occupy positions of power and leave only because they have the choice and privilege to do so.
The caste system, like racism in Western countries, is only abolished legally - in social settings it continues to exist - though it's not as bad as it was before independence.
When did Brahmins get kicked out of the country.
The Indian tech sector is better explained by a confluence of a few things, IMO:
1. English being the predominant spoken language, and the fact that North Indian languages share common roots with English meaning English is easier for Indians to pick up.
2. A cultural emphasis on education, and primarily engineering and medicine. You see similar cultural mores in former soviet nations and in Jewish communities which also end up having similar disproportionate success.
3. The existence of the IITs which provide an extremely high quality undergrad education (at the very least, it provides a high quality filter function) which then funneled engineers into Masters programs in the US especially in the mid to late 1900s, which is now benefitting America and American companies.
The Indian tech sector is better explained by a confluence of a few things, IMO:
1. English being the predominant spoken language, and the fact that North Indian languages share common roots with English meaning English is easier for Indians to pick up.
2. A cultural emphasis on education, and primarily engineering and medicine. You see similar cultural mores in former soviet nations and in Jewish communities which also end up having similar disproportionate success.
3. The existence of the IITs which provide an extremely high quality undergrad education (at the very least, it provides a high quality filter function) which then funneled engineers into Masters programs in the US especially in the mid to late 1900s, which is now benefitting America and American companies.
IITs were a thing. Now getting an IIT is purely a matter of practice. The entrance exams suck, and are susceptible to coaching.
Bullshit. Not just Brahmins are responsible for caste system and all. Now that Brahmin vote bank is literally smallest, every other community gets benefits from government, while Brahmins do not.
Some people like to hate on Brahmins. It is not even like all Brahmins are in religious professions either.
Some people like to hate on Brahmins. It is not even like all Brahmins are in religious professions either.
I think explains it. But there are more south Indian people than north Indian people as well, despite there being lesser population.
Education, literacy rates and standard of living are generally higher in Southern India.
I remember reading a study about gender pay disparity (where it actually exists between similarly skilled people in the same industry) was because the female members of the group were less likely to ask for pay raises than their male peers. They may have felt more intimidated or less entitled to simply ask, possibly as a cultural side effect (maybe as a result of childhood stuff like the way males are highly competitive early on).
I know a female software engineer friend of mine had read about that and got inspired and ended up asking for a serious raise when she got a new contract. I remember being both surprised and jealous the person said yes and took it as a life lesson.
I also remember tptacek on here always talking about the value in asking for more money as a software person, product, or consultancy because you're probably worth it.
So as the other commented mentioned the qualities of new immigrants might certainly select for this sort of thing, ie, people with high-motivation, bold life plans, taking advantage of their opportunity to really buy into the American dream, etc. That combined with a local-cultural confidence thing could certainly help explain it.
I know a female software engineer friend of mine had read about that and got inspired and ended up asking for a serious raise when she got a new contract. I remember being both surprised and jealous the person said yes and took it as a life lesson.
I also remember tptacek on here always talking about the value in asking for more money as a software person, product, or consultancy because you're probably worth it.
So as the other commented mentioned the qualities of new immigrants might certainly select for this sort of thing, ie, people with high-motivation, bold life plans, taking advantage of their opportunity to really buy into the American dream, etc. That combined with a local-cultural confidence thing could certainly help explain it.
That's nonsense. It is well-known that Indian women do better in the tech industry than their American counterparts. See articles below.
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2...
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/engineering-...
https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/
https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-sk...
Developers in India are 3-times more likely to be female than developers in the United States. https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2...
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/engineering-...
https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/
https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-sk...
Developers in India are 3-times more likely to be female than developers in the United States. https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015
I didn’t say anything about female engineers in general in my comment or compared them to Americans. So I’m not sure which part is “nonsense” which you are talking about.
The reasons why there are more females going into engineering in India and other countries on the developing side like Romania have been well discussed on HN (yet the pattern of women not being as frequently in math or engineering remains in many developed countries, hardly just the US) I don’t think it’s particularly unique to India or Indian women.
The reasons why there are more females going into engineering in India and other countries on the developing side like Romania have been well discussed on HN (yet the pattern of women not being as frequently in math or engineering remains in many developed countries, hardly just the US) I don’t think it’s particularly unique to India or Indian women.
I think a lot of this also comes down to class and your environment growing up.
For example: I grew up in an environment where you're meant to resent your boss, complain about them, and see them as an adversary. They are not someone you try to become because bosses are bad.
How much harder do you think that makes it to climb corporate ladders if your internal narrative is that being the boss means you're a bad person?
For example: I grew up in an environment where you're meant to resent your boss, complain about them, and see them as an adversary. They are not someone you try to become because bosses are bad.
How much harder do you think that makes it to climb corporate ladders if your internal narrative is that being the boss means you're a bad person?
In big companies, not a small family owned business, I see bosses or mamagers have their own bosses or managers which give them difficult tasks like refusing promotion, or increment or such. When I started seeing my boss and his/her duty as two different things, that he is just doing his job; I started feeling less resentful against boss & more towards the company or its policy makers. Obviously there can be exceptions & great & worst bosses can be there enjoying themselves.
To be fair, the Indian education system was crafted to create 'Brown Sahibs' to manage the Colonial Govt., and unlike say SE Asia and E. Asia, the system remains in essentially the same state that the British left it in. Indeed, most 'Indian Americans' are united in their hatred for their home countries IMO.
On the other hand, it's very unsurprising that India's greatest export remains Human Labour. For those who don't realize this, India's balance of payments is actually positive inspite of the imports being about ~$150 billion more than exports (that is about 5% of nominal GDP). This comes about because of the amount of money that is being repatriated by Indians.
Perhaps it is for this reason that India maintains a linguistic apartheid, whereby only the English speakers have access to education, and higher wrungs of the state like the judiciary, civil services etc. It's also a testament to the nation's collective stupidity that it thinks exporting cheap labour over building skills within the country, is a justifiable strategy.
This is echoed, unsurprisingly, by 'body traders' like Infosys (c.f Nandan Nilekani), but is a common state doctrine after 'independence'. Unlike China, which emphasized mass education access, and local technological ability, India's schools specialize basically in serving Anglo-Saxon nations - most IITians etc. leave the country on graduation (esp. in CS).
Within a country like India, where each of the major languages have a speaking population of an average 6+ million (similar to S. Korea, Germany etc.), and where Hindi has a speaking population of 400+ million, you'd be hard pressed to find a single university of repute that can educate people in any of the native languages. Even the bombastic Tamils in the south or the Hindi pushers in the north have little to show after 70+ years of bitter politicking.
How a mob of uneducated rabble, neither interested in agriculture nor equipped for industry, will be beneficial for India is a puzzle that only Indians appear to be able to "bend" around.
For these reasons, those who compare India with China, have neither an awareness of India's history, its present British colony run by "Brown Sahibs", or even about its historic role as the "pivot for Asia", whereby it was used to colonize the whole of Asia. This is not surprising, since its own 'eminent' academics are often at a loss in doing anything that doesn't involve mimicking their long gone masters.
On the other hand, it's very unsurprising that India's greatest export remains Human Labour. For those who don't realize this, India's balance of payments is actually positive inspite of the imports being about ~$150 billion more than exports (that is about 5% of nominal GDP). This comes about because of the amount of money that is being repatriated by Indians.
Perhaps it is for this reason that India maintains a linguistic apartheid, whereby only the English speakers have access to education, and higher wrungs of the state like the judiciary, civil services etc. It's also a testament to the nation's collective stupidity that it thinks exporting cheap labour over building skills within the country, is a justifiable strategy.
This is echoed, unsurprisingly, by 'body traders' like Infosys (c.f Nandan Nilekani), but is a common state doctrine after 'independence'. Unlike China, which emphasized mass education access, and local technological ability, India's schools specialize basically in serving Anglo-Saxon nations - most IITians etc. leave the country on graduation (esp. in CS).
Within a country like India, where each of the major languages have a speaking population of an average 6+ million (similar to S. Korea, Germany etc.), and where Hindi has a speaking population of 400+ million, you'd be hard pressed to find a single university of repute that can educate people in any of the native languages. Even the bombastic Tamils in the south or the Hindi pushers in the north have little to show after 70+ years of bitter politicking.
How a mob of uneducated rabble, neither interested in agriculture nor equipped for industry, will be beneficial for India is a puzzle that only Indians appear to be able to "bend" around.
For these reasons, those who compare India with China, have neither an awareness of India's history, its present British colony run by "Brown Sahibs", or even about its historic role as the "pivot for Asia", whereby it was used to colonize the whole of Asia. This is not surprising, since its own 'eminent' academics are often at a loss in doing anything that doesn't involve mimicking their long gone masters.
That's both a little harsh and doesn't stand up to scrunity. As a counterexample, consider Singapore, which also has inherited and retained the British education & legal systems, as well as standardized on English as the lingua franca despite it being nobody's mother tongue. Yet Singapore has still become one of the world's richest countries, while Malaysia next door, starting from almost the same position (they were part of the same colony/country!), has not.
My equally unpopular opinion is that Gandhi's ruinous Swaraj/socialist economies theories that basically involved blocking off imports and central planning of everything were the primary cause India stagnated for so many decades, and has now fallen so far behind China in everything except exporting brainy IT engineers to work in the US.
My equally unpopular opinion is that Gandhi's ruinous Swaraj/socialist economies theories that basically involved blocking off imports and central planning of everything were the primary cause India stagnated for so many decades, and has now fallen so far behind China in everything except exporting brainy IT engineers to work in the US.
Nonsense. Russian(Ex-USSR), China are more extreme in central planning and inward focus than India will ever be.
The real problem is insatiable desire among Indians for Managerial/Administrative jobs. Or Govt bribe income potential jobs(Again in Administration). Most people want to be in abstract boss level administrative/managerial jobs because they think they can just give orders and make 10x more money than people who do 10x work to make things happen and make 0.1x money.
Indians do well in administration/management because it's the most aspirational job here. Lastly India is a country of shopkeepers and resellers. We are NOT an engineering or industrialization intensive country.
There is a fundamental cultural problem and that is unlikely to be solved soon given the misaligned incentives.
The real problem is insatiable desire among Indians for Managerial/Administrative jobs. Or Govt bribe income potential jobs(Again in Administration). Most people want to be in abstract boss level administrative/managerial jobs because they think they can just give orders and make 10x more money than people who do 10x work to make things happen and make 0.1x money.
Indians do well in administration/management because it's the most aspirational job here. Lastly India is a country of shopkeepers and resellers. We are NOT an engineering or industrialization intensive country.
There is a fundamental cultural problem and that is unlikely to be solved soon given the misaligned incentives.
> Indians do well in administration/management because it's the most aspirational job here.
If your definition of doing well is doing some droid - like managing of stuff, yes. Innovation? Not much..
If your definition of doing well is doing some droid - like managing of stuff, yes. Innovation? Not much..
Gandhi? which one?
I am actually happy English is the language. India has several languages each with small population of speakers. Having access to education in English is big plus. If it was Hindi, all south and east Indians will be in serious disadvantage.
This followed my own similar observations with Indian people that I know. They, more often than not, are more confident and straightforward in their actions whether it be how they honestly feel or not.
I’ve seen (while working at Google) that on paper they seemed to have lots of “education” and in meetings the ones in management were overly confident and talked the talk but in 1:1 rarely did they know anything that wasn’t in a book, jargon or memorized. Rarely did they think up their own ideas or challenged the status quo. My manager was from India. He told me to make my solutions look more complicated and more lines of code to “make it on his team”. Engineers I found amazing, but once they decide to go the management path stay away, they would step over and on anyone, claim ownership for others ideas. not in a productive, supportive, work hard way, but a calculating negative way.
Been doing this a long time, and every culture has differences but only with Indians in management from India did I feel I had to watch my back. Nepotism was so obvious I’m shocked it isn’t researched more. Maybe something with that ridiculously stupid and inhuman caste system. Ymmv
Been doing this a long time, and every culture has differences but only with Indians in management from India did I feel I had to watch my back. Nepotism was so obvious I’m shocked it isn’t researched more. Maybe something with that ridiculously stupid and inhuman caste system. Ymmv
Caste system doesn't seem to be a reason. People here just want shortest way for something, not much ethical considerations or whatever.
People study CSE mostly because it pays well, despite having literally no interest in this.
People study 4 years sacrificing everything, in a rote learning way, to get into IITs.
People demand reservations for government jobs and education on whatever basis imaginable.
They just want some end at all means.
80% of Indian people are shit.. source: I am an Indian.
People study CSE mostly because it pays well, despite having literally no interest in this.
People study 4 years sacrificing everything, in a rote learning way, to get into IITs.
People demand reservations for government jobs and education on whatever basis imaginable.
They just want some end at all means.
80% of Indian people are shit.. source: I am an Indian.
>>On top of that, some of them are pretty clever at courting favor of their superiors and/or playing office politics.
As a fellow Indian myself, let me assure you the biggest victims of this are the remaining other fellow Indian themselves.
Things like this are the biggest reason why I wish I had a chance to settle and work in the US.
As a fellow Indian myself, let me assure you the biggest victims of this are the remaining other fellow Indian themselves.
Things like this are the biggest reason why I wish I had a chance to settle and work in the US.
[deleted]
This comment seems to be assuming that Indians are over-represented at the C-suite, but that seems doubtful. Given the huge proportion of the tech workforce that Indians occupy, the number of CEOs being discussed seems perfectly... average. If I were to draw any conclusions at all, it would be that Indians are just like everyone else in tech, not the opposite.
Don't forget the infamous in-group preferences they bring as soon as they take over.
Not sure why you were downvoted. There have been lawsuits [1][2] about Indian nepotism in US companies. As always, people are quick to claim "racism".
[1] https://qz.com/india/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouragin...
[2] https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/09/h-1b-san-jose-tech-fi...
[1] https://qz.com/india/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouragin...
[2] https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/09/h-1b-san-jose-tech-fi...
You notice it as well. :) My division was managed by an Indian managing director, who succeeded a Caucasian boss prior 2018. Within 2 years of his arrival (and his departure for another company at the end of 2019), our department has the ratio of Indian to non-Indian ratio suddenly goes from around 20% to 70% (this increase in ratio accelerated because quite a few of the non-Indian people left in the past year).
The guy that I mentioned above who asked for one whole month of vacation also encouraged another Indian guy to do the same and they both took off last December to India while some team members from other projects were asked to cover for their absence by the ex-managing director. Worse, that guy also somehow convinced our management to hire his then-fiance in mid 2019 directly from India as a manager. I just can't believe how he pulled these off, but I have to give it to him for being really good at getting things done the way he wants them.
The guy that I mentioned above who asked for one whole month of vacation also encouraged another Indian guy to do the same and they both took off last December to India while some team members from other projects were asked to cover for their absence by the ex-managing director. Worse, that guy also somehow convinced our management to hire his then-fiance in mid 2019 directly from India as a manager. I just can't believe how he pulled these off, but I have to give it to him for being really good at getting things done the way he wants them.
Good for him and good for you you can appreciate another man running his own show. I sometimes have the feeling a lot of guys are more jealous than women.
Interesting! This needs a tu quoque argument. Would you say the same about Jews in Banking/Finance? Is it jews hiring fellow jews?
- how come every other cop (esp. in the Northeast) has last names like Donovan or Monahan
- how come every other fireman is an O'Reilly or O'Connell
- how come every landscaping or construction business is owned by a Caruso or Piretti
- What about the "Patel Motels" or Dunkin & 7-11 franchises owned by Indians : on and on...
Ethnic niches are nothing new and extrapolating from some anecdata (and a few lawsuits) claiming discrimination is absurd.
- how come every other cop (esp. in the Northeast) has last names like Donovan or Monahan
- how come every other fireman is an O'Reilly or O'Connell
- how come every landscaping or construction business is owned by a Caruso or Piretti
- What about the "Patel Motels" or Dunkin & 7-11 franchises owned by Indians : on and on...
Ethnic niches are nothing new and extrapolating from some anecdata (and a few lawsuits) claiming discrimination is absurd.
At Microsoft we called this phenomenon the "Indocritical mass", for obvious reasons. Russians are the polar opposite of this, BTW. If a Russian is interviewing a Russian, _less_ slack will be cut than if they were interviewing anybody else.
As an Indian person I frankly don’t think there’s anything special about Indians. The immigrants you meet are not representative of the country as a whole... in India you will meet plenty of lazy imbeciles. It’s just that India has a vast population of technically educated people, and in contrast to China, these people have grown up in a heavily British-influenced society (esp. language) so they integrate in the US and UK better than Chinese.
I attended an interview of a major non-tech CEO and he attributed the cultural attitude of Jugaad [0] as the reason why so many CEOs are of Indian descent.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
Makes a lot of sense, an infectious can-do attitude as it may.
https://www.reddit.com/r/redneckengineering/top/?t=all
https://www.reddit.com/r/redneckengineering/top/?t=all
I don't like to be a downer. But this Jugaad (or hack your way) attitude is one of the reasons why we (Indians) haven't become good at manufacturing stuff (unlike China). The world needs more solutions than hacks.
I don't think Jugaad is a significant factor in that disparity. China has a similiar, and arguably much worse, widespread philosophy called Cha bu duo (close enough)[1], and it doesn't seem to slow them down much.
[1] https://medium.com/@ItsPhilipChang/cha-bu-duo-is-not-what-yo...
[1] https://medium.com/@ItsPhilipChang/cha-bu-duo-is-not-what-yo...
In business, ultimate bias is money. Who ever brings in more at the same time saves on expense.
tinyhouse(1)
So, not working with any insider knowledge (I work for Red Hat, but reading the news like everyone else), but the other news is that Jim Whitehurst is going to be the IBM President. Hopefully a big push in keeping Red Hat's culture relevant and influencing IBM to transform.
I remember thinking when the RH deal was first announced, IBM should pull a NeXT/Apple and just let the Red Hat executives take over the new company.
[deleted]
> Hopefully a big push in keeping Red Hat's culture
How would you describe RedHat culture?
How would you describe RedHat culture?
I've been at Red Hat so long now (12 years) that it can be easy to take things for granted, but the biggest thing is just how open and transparent a company it is. There's not a lot of silo's or little kingdoms fighting each other, we're all generally working together.
For example, we're a fairly large company (10000+), but we still have an all company mailing list. And it is used by anyone to raise a concern, talk about an opportunity, etc. And that starts a conversation with anyone participating. I am on the Services side, but there is no barrier in place for me to reach out to anyone in the BU, Engineering, Marketing, whatever. I don't think I have ever had to pass a message up the chain of command for it to be passed down somewhere else, I'm just allowed to communicate when and how I need to.
The other way it comes out is that open-source has truly warped our way of thinking about things. For example, there's not a culture of restricting access to our own documents, team drives, etc. One of my peers was working on a new slide deck on a team drive, hadn't really shared it with anyone, then found out that one slide was copied into a presentation done by an EMEA team a day later. That kind of easy access and reuse is just _standard_. It applies to code, but also everything else we do.
I've worked with lots of clients through my job, and it is always eye opening when their employees are worried about "sticking out their neck" or otherwise rocking the boat. Or companies where a developer trying to talk to the business would be an incident with your manager giving you a talk. This is just completely foreign to anyone at Red Hat.
For example, we're a fairly large company (10000+), but we still have an all company mailing list. And it is used by anyone to raise a concern, talk about an opportunity, etc. And that starts a conversation with anyone participating. I am on the Services side, but there is no barrier in place for me to reach out to anyone in the BU, Engineering, Marketing, whatever. I don't think I have ever had to pass a message up the chain of command for it to be passed down somewhere else, I'm just allowed to communicate when and how I need to.
The other way it comes out is that open-source has truly warped our way of thinking about things. For example, there's not a culture of restricting access to our own documents, team drives, etc. One of my peers was working on a new slide deck on a team drive, hadn't really shared it with anyone, then found out that one slide was copied into a presentation done by an EMEA team a day later. That kind of easy access and reuse is just _standard_. It applies to code, but also everything else we do.
I've worked with lots of clients through my job, and it is always eye opening when their employees are worried about "sticking out their neck" or otherwise rocking the boat. Or companies where a developer trying to talk to the business would be an incident with your manager giving you a talk. This is just completely foreign to anyone at Red Hat.
Can you explain what the difference is between president and CEO in terms of role and ability to influence the company?
This is SOP for borgifying acquihires. IBM isn't capable of operating in a cohesive way. Shuffling the org chart won't change that.
>This is SOP for borgifying acquihires
Translation?
Translation?
SOP: standard operating procedure
Borgifying: bringing into a collective mind space (pejoratively)
Aquihire: buying a company for its people rather than its products
Borgifying: bringing into a collective mind space (pejoratively)
Aquihire: buying a company for its people rather than its products
It’ll be interesting to see where the new CEO takes IBM and what his strategy is to make IBM relevant again. The last decade has been stagnant (if you’re being nice) and abysmal (if you’re being honest) for IBM, missing out on all the forecasted tech growth categories. Cloud services, they’re never even in the discussion. Mobile - forget it. AI...maybe. They need to find a niche they can excel in, 1 least, in order to create the buzz needed to make them a relevant company again.
I'm not going to argue that IBM is currently healthy and performing as they should but they did have over $22 billion in cloud revenue for 2019 so they are evidently in the discussion somewhere.
They have a single-digit share of the market, though (lots of sources say that, but here's one: https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/cloud-market-share-q4-2018-... ).
As someone who was using them until recently, I think that they really bungled the Softlayer acquisition. They didn't invest in their product offerings for years while AWS pulled ahead - and while they have been investing pretty heavily more recently, they are so far behind it's a little sad.
As someone who was using them until recently, I think that they really bungled the Softlayer acquisition. They didn't invest in their product offerings for years while AWS pulled ahead - and while they have been investing pretty heavily more recently, they are so far behind it's a little sad.
They are moving whatever they can to count as cloud and bought RedHat to continue to “grow” cloud as they probably ran out of things to move.
Having compared IBM's cloud offerings against AWS, Azure and GCP... the vast majority of what IBM is calling cloud is a stretch. In my current engagement them running another companies servers in that companies datacenters == "cloud".
Also couldn't they basically sit on their rear and collect on mainframe contracts from now until the end of time?
No. There's immense pressure on the mainframe market; there's a constant drumbeat of mainframe-killer tech that's definitely better/faster/stronger (and, on rare occasions, is...at least for some narrowly defined workload). IBM has to work very hard keep mainframes competitive technology, and even harder at sales/marketing to fend off the alternatives.
What competitive technology are you thinking here? IBM z-series mainframe carry enormous amounts of transaction workloads today. They are deeply embedded in most of the Fortune 1000 companies. Hitachi was the only real competitor left standing and they dumped their mainframe business in 2017 since they were unable to get traction outside of Japan.
In the early 90's, there were efforts by customers to get rid of their mainframes which put IBM on the ropes then, until Lou Gerstner took over as CEO and stabilized the business. It's not like these transaction workloads can be easily ported elsewhere since some of them go back as far as the early 1970's. Those customers able to ditch their mainframes did so a while back. The rest of these systems will remain due to risks and costs of migrating to a suitable alternative. It's not a huge revenue stream for IBM, but a very profitable one.
In the early 90's, there were efforts by customers to get rid of their mainframes which put IBM on the ropes then, until Lou Gerstner took over as CEO and stabilized the business. It's not like these transaction workloads can be easily ported elsewhere since some of them go back as far as the early 1970's. Those customers able to ditch their mainframes did so a while back. The rest of these systems will remain due to risks and costs of migrating to a suitable alternative. It's not a huge revenue stream for IBM, but a very profitable one.
But mainframe customers are still dumping them, and they're not picking IBM: https://cloud.google.com/press-releases/2020/0121/sabre-and-...
Note that SABRE is the OG enterprise app, by most measures it was the first non-military/govt/research computer system, going live in 1960 (!) and the core still runs System/360 (which they had to migrate to, not from!).
Note that SABRE is the OG enterprise app, by most measures it was the first non-military/govt/research computer system, going live in 1960 (!) and the core still runs System/360 (which they had to migrate to, not from!).
What exactly did you say that you think I didn't?
Their consulting business should also basically print money. They aren't great, objectively, but they are far ahead of the average in that sector.
On Wall Street, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
They’re stock price is the same as it was in 2010, so the market is clearly not expecting great things.
Good to see an engineer taking helm of the company from the previous CEOs which were from sales.
Maybe we'll have a renaissance like what Satya did to Microsoft...
Maybe we'll have a renaissance like what Satya did to Microsoft...
Satya wasn't an engineer at microsoft.
> Satya wasn't an engineer at microsoft.
This is true, strictly speaking. But (also strictly speaking) he was an engineer
> Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet[7] before receiving a bachelor's in electrical engineering[8] from the Manipal Institute of Technology (then part of Mangalore University) in Karnataka in 1988.[9][10] Nadella subsequently traveled to the U.S. to study for an M.S. in computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,[11][12] receiving his degree in 1990.[13] Later, he received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.[14]
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella)
And that's all GP said.
> Good to see an engineer taking helm of the company from the previous CEOs which were from sales.
This is true, strictly speaking. But (also strictly speaking) he was an engineer
> Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet[7] before receiving a bachelor's in electrical engineering[8] from the Manipal Institute of Technology (then part of Mangalore University) in Karnataka in 1988.[9][10] Nadella subsequently traveled to the U.S. to study for an M.S. in computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,[11][12] receiving his degree in 1990.[13] Later, he received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.[14]
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella)
And that's all GP said.
> Good to see an engineer taking helm of the company from the previous CEOs which were from sales.
Rometty also has an engineering degree. Neither of them seemed to have ever worked as engineers. I don’t see how he’s more of an engineer then she is.
Nadella was a Program Manager at Microsoft.
And? He started as an engineer. GP didn't say he had to be an engineer at his current company.
What’s your point?
Rometti started as an engineer at IBM in the 1980s.
[deleted]
usually strong CEOs have at least some sales background, and typically technical chops too.
>[New CEO] Krishna is currently the head of IBM’s cloud and cognitive software unit and was a principal architect of the company’s purchase of Red Hat
All-in with that then.
All-in with that then.
What's the difference between the President and CEO roles?
I can't speak for IBM specifically but typically the CEO is the face of the company to the public and makes macro decisions while the president is the face of the company to the employees and makes more micro decisions.
In at least some cases, the CEO is the one actually running things, and the President is the one whose job is to fire the CEO if they're screwing up. Not that it is put that way, of course.
> President is the one whose job is to fire the CEO if they're screwing up.
I assumed the Chairman of the Board would fill that role?
President sounds to me like a step below CEO, but I know very little about corporate structuring...
I assumed the Chairman of the Board would fill that role?
President sounds to me like a step below CEO, but I know very little about corporate structuring...
Depends on the company, but it is not uncommon for the President and Chairman of the Board to be the same person.
IBM's Ballmer finally stepping out.
Hopefully IBM's Nadella is coming in!
Hopefully IBM's Nadella is coming in!
Krishna is always shown in blue, so it seems the obvious choice ;-)
Old timers talked about IBM the way people used to talk about Microsoft in the 90s and Google in the 2000s. The new CEO being someone who's been there his entire working life does not sound like a recipe for success.
[deleted]
Doesn't matter what his ethnicity is, if he doesn't produce (whatever that definition is: stock price, technology output, new market etc.) he'll be kicked out. At the CEO level, nepotism does not work (unless he has a golden parachute, does he?). Why the hell will he hire his "buddies" who are not productive?
So comparing him to low-mid level Indian managers who are fighting over scraps is comparing apples to oranges.
So comparing him to low-mid level Indian managers who are fighting over scraps is comparing apples to oranges.
Is IBM even relevant anymore or are they simply another McKinsey type consulting firm Who happens to sell mainframes to banks?
if generating 80 billion in revenue and making your shareholders money by selling mainframes to banks is irrelevant then I wouldn't want to be relevant.
I continue to be puzzled by the derision that companies on this site get just because they do regular business.
I continue to be puzzled by the derision that companies on this site get just because they do regular business.
They do that much because they are the incumbent. So they make that kind of money despite how shitty they are.
Technology/engineering/Moore's law can paper over a lot of dumb institutional inefficiency.
Also, just to be clear. It's very hard to do much better, big groups are hard to keep nimble, honest, agile, etc.
Technology/engineering/Moore's law can paper over a lot of dumb institutional inefficiency.
Also, just to be clear. It's very hard to do much better, big groups are hard to keep nimble, honest, agile, etc.
> Is IBM even relevant anymore or are they simply another McKinsey type consulting firm Who happens to sell mainframes to banks?
They are perhaps one of the biggest Government/Military Hardware contractors in the US, so sadly: Yes.
They are perhaps one of the biggest Government/Military Hardware contractors in the US, so sadly: Yes.
[deleted]
My bet was on Jim Whitehurst.
That was surely most Red Hatters' dream, but Arvind Krishna as CEO is probably the best possible outcome for Red Hat among the realistic ones (not counting that Whitehurst will be President, while Ginny Rometty was President and CEO).
Arvind Krishna was "Jim Whitehurst's boss" until now (Red Hat is under the IBM cloud division), and back when the acquisition was announced in 2018 he visited one of the Red Hat offices for a sort of "town hall" meeting. He almost unanimously made a very good impression, and he won over quite a few employees that at the time were skeptical about the acquisition.
Arvind Krishna was "Jim Whitehurst's boss" until now (Red Hat is under the IBM cloud division), and back when the acquisition was announced in 2018 he visited one of the Red Hat offices for a sort of "town hall" meeting. He almost unanimously made a very good impression, and he won over quite a few employees that at the time were skeptical about the acquisition.
> Arvind Krishna was "Jim Whitehurst's boss" until now
Not true. Jim (and Red Hat under him) reported directly to Ginni. Red Hat was under IBM cloud for revenue reporting, though, but the distinction is material.
Not true. Jim (and Red Hat under him) reported directly to Ginni. Red Hat was under IBM cloud for revenue reporting, though, but the distinction is material.
He reported to both.
He'll become the IBM President.
He’ll be CEO in 3 years as long as the RH acq works. Otherwise he’ll be thrown under the bus.
Reminds me of https://archive.vn/UpV1Y
[deleted]
Good for them that they have a technologist as the boss. Seems like the ascendancy of RedHat isn’t a great sign. They are still in the audit business rather than the technology business.
Can we derive anything meaningful from the fact that this Hacker News item almost gets no response and just a few comments?
HN is SV centric where IBM is an East coast tech company. HN is startup centric where IBM is over 100 years old. HN is very B2C centric where IBM is almost exclusively B2B.
HN doesn’t deal too much with enterprise companies.
HN doesn’t deal too much with enterprise companies.
Fuck, I had no idea IBM was found in 1911. That's mental.
I'll never forgive them for subjecting me to Clearcase or DOORS.
Clearcase was my first version control software. I don't think I'll ever experience such feelings of tranquil bliss and relief as when I learned and switched to git.
I was still using it at my previous employer that I left a few months ago.
I always found Clearcase crazy complicated to use, but it has so many cool ideas in its design.
And Lotus Notes... kill me.
---
> If you're worried about bamboo ceilings/glass ceilings, don't. It's more likely a genetic ceiling.
I am quite amazed how you felt empowered to write nonsense shit on a public forum. Obviously no need for citations because ???
I am quite amazed how you felt empowered to write nonsense shit on a public forum. Obviously no need for citations because ???
What did he (ptrenko) say? Weirdly I only see --- as his comment.
He wrote something about a specific tribe of south indians and how they are genetically enclined to be good at politics and that Asians don’t need to worry, but work on their weaknesses to succeed, even if they don’t have genes.
AtlasBarfed(1)
I was expecting to see the Watson logo
Exactly. Don't be fooled by this clever marketing, we all know who's really pulling the strings behind the scenes...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
>In a release, Rometty described Krishna as a “brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain”
Sounds like IBM's strategy is going all in on buzzwords.