The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 20 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Krishna: Building vertical solutions instead of building blocks early in tech is a mistake
“As opposed to creating building blocks, we wanted to create solutions in verticals. That I think is a mistake as technology shows in the beginning.”
Krishna: AI data center buildout promises make no economic sense
“If I take all the verbal promises, and if you say there's a 125 gigawatts of AI data centers that are going to come online in the next two to three years, that's the eight to 12 trillion of CapEx in total. Not in one year, in total. That is where I come to. I …”
Krishna: Quantum simulation will scale to 24,000 atoms within two months
“We're pretty sure that in another month or two, we'll be at double that range, which means you can solve trypsin.”
Krishna: Anthropic's Mythos Found No New Vulnerabilities Beyond Existing Models
“Mythos didn't find anything that other models didn't and couldn't find.”
Krishna: Market will support only three or four foundation models globally
“So, and I don't think in a commodity world, there probably isn't space for a dozen foundation models. Is there space for three or four? Probably. But since there's a dozen being run after globally, it tells you that They're not all going to work out.”
Schmidt: Leaders have six to nine months to change company culture
“The other thing I learned, and this is from Lou Gerstner, Who said, who had written a whole book on this, and his IBM turnaround, he said, you only have six to nine months to change the culture of a company before you're stuck with it.”
Krishna: IBM tripled college-level entry hiring year-over-year
“We actually tripled our college level entry hiring this year. Tripled compared to last year.”
Krishna: IBM will reach over $5 billion in AI savings by year four
“And now at year four we'll be I think over five billion from a baseline of 22 spent. So that's not an incremental five over last year. That's a incremental saving compared to our year-end 22 spending.”
Krishna: IBM achieved a 10x ROI on AI spending after year two
“After year two, we were definitely getting a return that was 10 X compared to what we were spending.”
Krishna: IBM software developers are 40% more productive over two years
“Our software developers are probably 40% more productive today than they were two years ago. So I'm not saying it's one month, over two years, they're 40% more productive.”
Krishna: IBM Watson failed by targeting healthcare with zero domain expertise
“We went too quickly, and we wanted to make a monolithic application. Mistake number one. Mistake number two, we picked a domain, which is perhaps the hardest of them all, which is health. Mistake number three, how many IBMers sell to doctors, and how many IBMe…”
Archambeau: Sales is the best first job regardless of career goals
“I tell people to this day, I think the best first job, I don't care what you want to do in life, it's a sales job. Best job. Because you learn how to ask for what you need. You ask for the order, and you learn how to be resilient, and that a no is not the end …”
Archambeau: Minorities hold an edge in international corporate assignments
“I tell people all the time, women, minorities, go do an international assignment. You will actually have a edge above people who have not been minorities and experienced being minorities in a new culture.”
Krishna: IBM missed the public cloud and client-server waves
“I would say public cloud is one of them, candidly, that we missed. I would actually turn around and say, despite inventing the IBM PC, client server was another one that we missed.”
Krishna: IBM will not be a hyperscaler or foundation model provider
“We are not going to be a hyperscaler, which was two of the four you mentioned, and we're not a foundation model provider.”
Solivan: I would have found a co-founder before launching TaskRabbit
“If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have tried harder from the beginning. To find a co-founding partner. Like before I went to the incubator program, you know, maybe even before I left IBM, I would have taken the time from the very beginning t…”
Krishna: IBM Grew Software Revenue Mix from 20% in 2019 to 45% Today
“Two, we were About 20% software in 2019. We are now about 45%.”
Leah Solivan cashed out her $27,000 IBM pension to launch TaskRabbit
“As I look back at it was like 27,000 dollars I had earned in my pension plan, and I was like, well, I could take this out and pay the tax penalty, and this is what I'm gonna use to start the company.”
Archambeau: Every single IBM CEO began their career in sales
“Turned out every single CEO of IBM started out in sales.”
Archambeau: High percentage of top IBM executives completed Japan assignments
“Almost all of them had gone and done an international assignment. But more than that, A good chunk of them, a high percentage, had actually gone to Japan. And I thought, that's not obvious. Japan was probably our smallest marketplace.”