231 Erwin Road

My experiences as a Northern transplant down in Chapel Hill, NC, 2005. And now my experiences back up in NYC.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Why I love IBM

I'm currently reading (listening) to "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance" by Louis V. Gerstner Jr. He was the CEO at IBM a few years back and completely saved the company in the early 90's. He's revered by many at the company, I don't know much about him though.

Lou took over when IBM was going down in flames, the stock price was around $13 from $40 a year before. 3 weeks into his new job role, he hosted the annual share holders meeting, which was a massacre. After the meeting he flew back to NY on an IBM corporate airplane and this was his conversation with the flight attendant:

I turned to the flight attendant and said "This has been a really tough day, I think I'd like to have a drink."

She said, "You don't mean an alcoholic drink do you?"

"I certainly do,"
I replied, "what kind of Vodka do you have?"

"We have no alcohol on IBM airplanes, it is prohibited to serve alcohol."


I said, "Can you think of anyone who can change that rule?"

"Well, perhaps you could, sir."


"It's changed, effectively immediately!"

6 Comments:

  • At 6/28/2005 1:20 PM, Blogger eirishis said…

    interestingly (for me), louis gerstner is now the head of the Teaching Commission, who we do some work with.

     
  • At 6/29/2005 3:58 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    dude thats an old story....you work for them? and you are just telling us now????

     
  • At 6/29/2005 3:58 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    dude thats an old story....you work for them? and you are just telling us now????

     
  • At 6/29/2005 7:16 AM, Blogger Vincent said…

    Old story??? Do you know how many old stories there are in this world? I'm sure this was a 'new' fact to the majority of people. Just cause something is old doesn't mean everybody knows about it.

    'New' doesn't necessarily imply time.

     
  • At 6/29/2005 11:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Vinny, I used to have alot of respect for that guy...until I heard he was chairman of the carlyle group http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/team/l5-team861.html

    He could of put his expertise in helping out the country that helped him become so great....thats sad

     
  • At 6/29/2005 12:54 PM, Blogger Vincent said…

    I don't know enough about them (other the Fahrenheit 9/11) or his plans there to comment either way.

    Wikipedia article

     

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