It must be tough for a young executive to get up in front of the group and outline your new strategy to great excitement only to get an email from the dinobaby saying basically "Yeah, your idea was tried once in the 70's and a couple times in the 80's and it doesn't work. Here's several book references that go into great length why your idea seems like a good one on the surface, but really is one of the worst ideas that people keep coming up with"
I’ve had IBM recruiters reach out to me. Each time I reference these age discrimination lawsuits as the reason I refuse to consider them. Why should I join a company that is going to actively try to get rid of me in a few years. Good luck getting experienced hire to return your calls now.
The IBM executives don’t seem particularly young to me: <a href="https://www.ibm.com/investor/governance/senior-leadership" rel="nofollow">https://www.ibm.com/investor/governance/senior-leadership</a><p>I suspect there is a good amount of projection happening. They view themselves as old, overpaid, not doing enough work, lacking creativity and ability to engage with the “digital” community. So they assume that is true for everyone under them and took drastic measures to “fix” the problem.<p>It would be interesting to see who exactly sent those emails. Will they publicly stand by those words and defend them?
Curiously, this criteria didn't apply to Ginni, Sam and the like.<p>Also, it seemed so weird to me that IBM's primary goal had to be to pump share value to $200 by selling whatever they could sell, with the sole long term advantage was for the very same managers who held share options, and were close to retirement.<p>I left in 2012.
Funny...when the real dino and baby (is not understanding it's surrounding fully) is IBM itself...once more IBM shows complete lack of self-reflection.
one the one hand. it is age discrimination on the other hand there are winds of change and the truth is unless your hip to the climate you will and probably should be replaced because business is going in a different direction and the customers are different.<p>How many people had their parents work at a company for along time? that would be bad advice to give to a kid now a days.<p>If you like things the way they are and believe the new stuff is wrong well thats politics and you better be good at arguing your case. some cases the dinos actually win. i know young people are getting hip to right to repair which was a given back in the day when things were simpler so sometimes old ideas are refreshed. other times like (on prem) kinda died off and cloud is the way most people are going (i remember aruging with a freind in 2011 about using aws and he thought it was the dumbest thing but here were are with most stuff in the cloud now)
This is very typical of IBM, you can find lawsuits going back decades. When you get near retirement age they either fire you for performance or relocate your position to a third world country and only pay local wages. In the US it is very difficult to bring an age discrimination lawsuit, if you do so anyway, and if you are successful, they simply don’t pay the judgement. Start to Google the subject and you’ll find all sorts of mailing lists, web sites, and support groups.<p>And if you think all of that is bad then wait until you read up on their role in Hitler’s final solution - <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust</a>
>> In 2020, the median age of IBM's US workforce was 48, the same as it was ten years prior, he added.<p>That is older than median. I can understand the position of executives who are worried.