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Another, contrarian perspective: I worked with IBM Fellows, CTOs, Distinguished Engineers, VPs, and divisional GMs for two decades, and they were sharp. Less th
by jonathaneunice 3y ago
Another, contrarian perspective: I worked with IBM Fellows, CTOs, Distinguished Engineers, VPs, and divisional GMs for two decades, and they were sharp. Less than 1N on the CATRA scale sharp. Absolutely on par with folks I worked with Apple, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and IBM's competitors of the time.
IBM's approach was indeed heavy-weight, and they loved complexifying things—but so did a lot of their customers in finance, aerospace, automotive, consumer goods, yadda yadda. IT operated by an entirely different business model and set of preferences in 1960–1990 than it did in 2000. It was the bespoke, pre-open standards, we'll handle all the edge cases in this lovingly homegrown solution era. The products were expensive, but in many cases solved technical operational problems that nothing else did. "Best of breed" was a common rallying cry; interchangeable parts and the virtues of utter standardization only came into prominence slowly.
The world's very different now, and there was enormous tension inside IBM, and between IBM and its customers and competitors, evolving to where we are today. (The same was true of almost all the legacy competitors.) However real that tension, what worked in the Before Times was the cause, not that IBM only employed doofuses or brought Mongol Hordes and crappy technology to bear.
- rqtwteye 3y agoI worked at IBM Research in 2003 for a year. There were a ton of extremely bright people there. It was pretty cool to go around a corner and see an office that belonged to Benoit Mandelbrot. Another office had the name tag of one of the "Design Patterns" guys. But it felt like IBM Research was totally disconnected from the actual business of IBM. The switch away from pensions also seemed to make IBM way less attractive for new hires.
- EschatonCometh 3y agoI spent a couple of Summers in Yorktown Heights and even had lunch with Beniot a couple of times. To have the second largest super computer down the hall, an electron tunneling microscope, and beauty of the Hudson Valley seems like a bygone era. The innovation, patents, and persona were not enough to move the needle vs Silicon Valley.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago> The switch away from pensions also seemed to make IBM way less attractive for new hires. Total comp is what matters. A meager DB pension is worth less than RSUs from a competing tech company earning tons more profit. I vastly prefer 401k and mega backdoor Roth capabilities than any DB pension. But IBM’s problem was not just getting rid of DB pensions, it was not paying competitive total comp in the first place. And also not having offices where their target employees would want to work.
- foobarian 3y agoSay, what are mega backdoor Roth capabilities? Asking for a friend.
- Sebguer 3y agoDescribed here: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/mega-backdoor-roths-work https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/mega-backdoor-r...
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoA lot of the researchers who worked at Yorktown and Hawthorne now work at google’s office in the city. They were mostly living in the city anyways, or wanted to live in the city, and the whole big tech campus in leafy WestChester county didn’t really appeal to them anyways.
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- cli 3y agoWhat is the CATRA scale? Searching brings up a fictional character from a cartoon, and something to do with knife sharpening.
- tubthumper8 3y agoIt's the knife sharpness one, they were referring to people being "sharp", which is another way of saying smart, typically the kind of person who thinks very quickly and nothing gets past them (hope this doesn't come off as condescending, I'm including these extra details for any non native English speakers because it's kind of a slang word)