Topic
120 facts from 34 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1958
On the IBM 7090 project, IBM's own plant had about a 10% yield while Texas Instruments' line had close to zero when Chang arrived.
“IBM's own plant is churning out transistors with about a 10% yield, which means that of every 100 chips that they turn out of the plant, 90% of them fail”
1960s-1970s
Acemoglu says early hopes for computing centred on decentralisation, with individuals doing things that IBM as a centralised organisation could not.
“many of the early hopes about computers were centered on decentralization. People could do in their garages things that IBM as a centralized organization couldn't do.”
1960s
Arvind Krishna says in the 1960s IBM controlled its whole supply chain, from sand and wafers to fabs and chips.
“In the sixties, we went all the way to dirt, meaning we found sand, we made our own wafers, we built our own fabs, we built our own chips”
1966
In 1966 Sam Walton attended an IBM seminar in Poughkeepsie, New York, on using computers in business.
“he goes up to Poughkeepsie, New York and enrolls himself as chairman CEO of Walmart in a seminar at IBM on how to use computing technology in business.”
1969
According to Ballmer, IBM faced an antitrust lawsuit starting in 1969 that was not settled until shortly after he joined Microsoft in 1980.
“IBM was the subject of an antitrust lawsuit, shockingly, in 1969, that didn't actually get settled, I think”
1970s
Herzig says SAP's founders were still working at IBM in the 1970s when they went customer to customer.
“actually in the 70s, when the founders of SAP worked still at IBM, what did they do? They went to each customer, right?”
1970
IBM researcher E. F. Codd wrote the original paper that gave rise to SQL in June 1970.
“June of 1970 is when EF Codd, who's an IBM researcher, wrote the original white paper that gave birth to SQL”
1980
IBM chose Intel, not Texas Instruments, to supply the processor for its first PC, which the host believes was the 8088.
“Instead, of course, it was Intel. I think it was the 8088 that was chosen for that first one.”
1980
The hosts say IBM, the most valuable company in the world in 1980, had a market capitalization of about $34 billion.
“You are almost an order of magnitude off. $34 billion. That was the most valuable company.”
1980
IBM created a secret project called Project Chess in Boca Raton, Florida, to build its personal computer.
“And they create a secret project called Project Chess.”
1980
According to Paul Allen's memoir, IBM paid Microsoft $75,000 for testing and consultation and $45,000 for DOS.
“IBM paid Microsoft $75,000 for testing and consultation, $45,000 for DOS.”
1980
IBM paid Microsoft a fixed total of $430,000 for DOS and language software, with no per-copy royalties.
“that is $430,000 fixed that IBM paid Microsoft with no ongoing obligation.”
1980s
Microsoft charged IBM a one-time fixed fee for the operating system instead of ongoing per-unit royalties.
“we didn't charge for the operating system on an ongoing basis. We charged for it one time.”
1981
Intel won the contract to supply the CPU for the IBM PC in 1981.
“it was 1981 when Intel landed the contract to be the CPU provider for the IBM PC.”
1981
Microsoft and IBM signed their PC agreement in November 1980, and the IBM PC shipped in August 1981.
“So they signed this agreement in November 1980. The IBM PC ships in August 1981.”
1987
The hosts say OS/2 launched in December 1987 and was poorly received.
“So when OS2 finally does come out in December 87, predictably, as you can imagine here, it's not very good.”
1987
Daniel Whitenack said IBM's one-day drop was its worst in over 50 years, exceeding its losses in the 1987 Black Monday crash.
“Marking it the, uh, worst single day drop in over 50 years, um, outpacing even its losses during the 1987 Black Monday market crash.”
1990s
Renaissance hired Peter Brown, Bob Mercer and David Magerman from IBM's speech-recognition group to build its equities model.
“They bring Peter and Bob and one of their programming colleagues, David Magerman, over from IBM into Rentech.”
1990
IBM ended its OS/2 joint development relationship with Microsoft in May 1990, which Ballmer described as a divorce.
“So we kept going with Windows. We kept going with OS2. And then May 1990, they come along and shoot us.”
1990s
Krishna says an early-1990s experience pitching commercial wireless networks to IBM's business side taught him he needed to learn markets and distribution.
“four or five years into IBM, I was looking at a building. This was in the early nineties, wireless networks”
1993
In January 1993 Microsoft's market capitalization passed IBM's.
“And then January 93, the crowning moment it happens, Microsoft passes IBM in market cap.”
1993
Peter Brown and Robert Mercer, computer scientists in computational linguistics, joined Renaissance from IBM Research in 1993.
“computer scientists specializing in computational linguistics who joined Renaissance in 1993 from IBM research”
1993
Arvind Krishna recalled a 1993 Time magazine cover showing a mainframe dressed as a dinosaur under the headline 'death of the mainframe'.
“I remember in 1993, there was, I think it was Time magazine where they were showing a mainframe dressed up as a dinosaur, and it was called the death of the mainframe.”
1999
Morris Chang says IBM asked TSMC to co-develop the 130-nanometer process in 1999, and TSMC declined.
“The next step they took was to ask us, TSMC, to co-develop the next generation of technology, which is 0.13 micron, 130 nanometer”
1999
Morris Chang says that after TSMC declined, IBM turned to UMC, which accepted the co-development offer and later regretted it.
“so they immediately went to UMC. And UMC accepted only to regret seriously their acceptance a few years later.”
2003
Kaiser first chose IBM for a roughly $4 billion project, which failed before Kaiser reopened the bid between Epic and Cerner.
“So IBM comes in and the project fails. Doesn't work.”
2005
Lenovo began as a PC manufacturer and acquired IBM's PC division in 2005 before diversifying its technology business.
“We started many decades ago as a PC manufacturer. And then with that, we acquired in 2005 the IBM PC division and then decided to diversify our technology business.”
2011
Warren Buffett invested $10.7 billion in IBM in 2011 and sold in 2018 at a loss of about $2 billion, according to the hosts.
“He puts $10.7 billion into IBM in 2011.”
2011
IBM built Watson in 2011 to show that AI could handle natural-language questions, including winning the game show Jeopardy.
“In 2011, we wanted to prove that A I can do and solve problems that were unimaginable.”
2015
Krishna compares quantum computers today to GPUs in 2015, which took about seven years to reach full demand by 2022.
“quantum computers today are where G P U s were circa 2015. G P U s from 2015 took about seven years to reach, I call it takeoff velocity completely.”
2017
Arvind Krishna says he formed his hybrid cloud thesis for IBM in 2017.
“So I made the hybrid observation deeply in 2017. As I was making that, I said, Okay, how do I test this?”
2017
Krishna says IBM would have needed to spend roughly five to ten billion dollars a year to catch up in public cloud.
“When you're that far behind, you would have to spend multiple billions, five to 10 billion a year to try and catch up.”
2017
Krishna says IBM acquired Red Hat so it could partner with all the big cloud providers instead of competing in public cloud.
“there were only two or three companies I thought that could help give us a portfolio. That makes us a great partner for all of them”
2018
The speakers describe the Slack acquisition as the largest software deal since IBM bought Red Hat in 2018.
“deal since IBM bought Red Hat two years ago in 2018.”
2018
IBM announced its Red Hat acquisition in 2018, took a year to close it after regulatory review, and it cost about 30% of IBM's market capitalization, according to Arvind Krishna.
“remember when we made that decision, that was 2018 that we announced. It took a year to get through regulators to close it. It was 30% of our market cap.”
2019
Krishna says he was convinced in 2019 that AI would be big, about three years before the wider world noticed.
“back in 2019, I was convinced that A I would be big. It took another three years for the world to wake up to that.”
2019
Krishna says software made up about 20% of IBM's business in 2019 and about 45% now.
“Two, we were about 20% software in 2019, we are now about 45%.”
2019
Arvind Krishna said software made up about 20% of IBM's business in 2019 and about 45% now.
“Two, we were about 20% software in 2019, we are now about 45%.”
2020
Arvind Krishna became CEO of IBM in 2020 after almost thirty years at the company.
“you took over as CEO in 2020, you'd been at the company for almost thirty years when that happened.”
2020
Krishna says IBM's mainframe business has grown every year in the six years since he became CEO, after declining for the ten years before.
“in the last six years mainframe has grown every single year.”
2021
IBM put AI on its mainframe platform in 2021, added more in 2024, and added still more in the latest generation.
“We put it on the platform in 2021, then we put more in 2024, and then we put even more, uh, this year.”
2025
Phil Fersht says companies are exploring replacing services bought from firms such as IBM and Infosys with agentic software, a trend he calls services as software.
“companies are starting to think about how can I replicate the services I'm receiving from an IBM or an Infosys or one of these companies?”
2025
According to Tim Crawford's description of the IBM CEO study, only 25% of AI projects were believed by CEOs to be proving return on investment and only 16% were expected to scale.
“only 25% of the of AI projects, according to those CEOs in the study, um, they believe are proving out the ROI, and only 16% are actually going to scale.”
2025
Apptio, which belongs to IBM, along with the TBM Council and the FinOps Foundation, is working on understanding what AI and cloud efforts actually cost.
“companies like Apptio, um, from IBM and the TBM Council, they're trying to get their arms around this as much as even just the FinOps Foundation.”
2025
Arvind Krishna said IBM's quantum systems handled a 300-atom molecule in November and December.
“Last, uh, winter, November, December, they could do 300 atom molecule.”
2026
Tim Crawford names IBM's Granite, Amazon Web Services' Nova and Google's Gemini as models whose makers are building in safety measures.
“whether it's granite from IBM, Nova from AWS, Gemini from, uh, Google, for example, they are putting safety measures in the mix.”
2026
Krishna says IBM tripled its college-level entry hiring compared with the previous year.
“We actually tripled our college level entry hiring this year, tripled compared to last year.”
2026
IBM announced a $5 billion initiative called Project Lightwell to identify and fix AI-related vulnerabilities in open source software.
“IBM recently announced 5 billion initiative called Project Lightwell to identify and fix AI vulnerabilities in the open source world.”
2026
Bob Safian says IBM partnered with the U.S. government on a new quantum foundry, investing $10 billion in a large-scale commercial quantum computer.
“You partnered with the U.S. government on a new quantum foundry, investing $10 billion in a large-scale commercial quantum computer.”
2026
Krishna says IBM's April simulation of 12,000 atoms covered a piece of the protein trypsin.
“So this was a piece of a protein called trypsin.”
2026
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said GPU pricing per hour had doubled over the previous six months.
“Underlying GPU pricing, which is what all of these things run on, has doubled in the last six months on a per hour basis.”
2026
Arvind Krishna said IBM's software developers are about 40% more productive than two years earlier.
“Our software developers are probably 40% more productive today than they were two years ago.”
2026
Arvind Krishna said IBM tripled its college-level entry hiring compared with the prior year.
“We actually tripled our college level entry hiring this year, tripled compared to last year.”
2026
Bob Safian said IBM announced a $5 billion initiative called Project Lightwell to identify and fix AI vulnerabilities in open source software.
“IBM recently announced 5 billion dollar initiative called Project Lightwell to identify and fix AI vulnerabilities in the open source world.”
2026
Arvind Krishna said that in IBM's testing, Anthropic's Mythos found no vulnerabilities that other models could not.
“Mythos didn't find anything that other models didn't and couldn't find.”
2026
Bob Safian said IBM is partnering with the U.S. government on a quantum foundry, investing $10 billion in a large-scale commercial quantum computer.
“You're partnered with the U.S. government on a new quantum foundry, investing $10 billion in a large-scale commercial quantum computer.”
2026
Arvind Krishna said IBM's quantum systems simulated 12,000 atoms in April, reaching the scale of proteins.
“In April, they did 12,000 atoms. They're now getting into the protein realm.”
2026
Arvind Krishna said the 12,000-atom quantum simulation modeled a piece of the protein trypsin.
“So this was a piece of a protein called trypsin.”
2026
IBM announced Lightwell, a clearing house for patching open-source software vulnerabilities.
“the announcement we made around Lightwell, which is really around us providing a clearing house for patching of, um, you know, open source.”
2029
Krishna says IBM needs to scale its quantum computers tenfold and improve error correction tenfold by 2029.
“we have them at a scale of hundreds to low thousands today. So that's not a future statement. So we got to get up in scale by a factor of ten”
Undated
Hamilton Helmer recalls that Apple took out a full-page ad welcoming IBM when it entered the PC business.
“I remember when IBM entered the PC business, Apple took out a full-page ad in, what was it, the Wall Street Journal or something?”
Undated
Hamilton Helmer says IBM once dominated the computer industry and backward integrated into chip fabrication, which made it the fab leader.
“back in the day when you guys are too young to remember this, but there was a time when IBM controlled the computer industry.”
Undated
Amazon targeted gross and operating margins of 20 to 40 percent for AWS, which the host says was unattractive to incumbents earning around 80 percent gross margins.
“Amazon targeted gross margins and operating margins for AWS in the 20 to 40% range.”
Undated
AWS won a secret cloud contract with US intelligence agencies, competing against incumbents such as HP, IBM and Oracle.
“we went after the the intelligence agencies for the US. government, and we won that contract and it was secret”
Undated
Garman says IBM sued over the AWS intelligence contract, which made the win public, and the agencies then publicly called AWS the most technically sophisticated option.
“so then it became public that we won this deal. And then the intelligence agencies went out to public and said, no, AWS is the most technically sophisticated”
Undated
Saket Srivastava's background includes roles at GE, IBM, Fujitsu and Square.
“I know you have a background at GE and IBM and Fujitsu and Square.”
Undated
Lenovo acquired IBM's x86 data center infrastructure business and the Motorola phones business from Google.
“We acquired the X86 data center infrastructure business from IBM. We acquired the Motorola phones business from Google after they had bought Motorola.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says IBM's early results suggest Groq's inference chips are about ten times cheaper than alternatives.
“And Groq is looks like, at least at our first uh steps, looks like it's ten x cheaper.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says about 60% of total technology spend is outside the United States, and regulated US industries tend toward hybrid cloud.
“About 60% of the total spend is outside the US. Even inside the US, anyone in a regulated industry is going to be hybrid in some sense.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says IBM has never misused client data in its 114 years.
“we tend to have the trust with those people that we have never, in 114 years, misused that data, not even once.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says HSBC tested IBM quantum computing for bond trading pricing.
“That's why HSBC proved to itself we could do bond trading pricing on it.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says IBM's open-source quantum software has about 650,000 users worldwide.
“The fact that there's 650,000 people globally who use it, hey, it tells me that there is excitement and there is a movement”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says about 300 clients work with IBM on quantum computing in a research rather than commercial mode.
“We have 300 clients, not commercial. There are 300 people working with us in a, let's call it, research mode.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna gives roughly 20-30% odds that IBM's quantum computing reaches something remarkable in three to three-and-a-half years.
“Will we get to something remarkable in three, maybe three and a half years? I'm gonna give it low odds. It's possible, but it's maybe twenty, 30%.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says an IBM team of 6,000 using an in-house coding tool became 45% more productive within four months.
“Within four months, the team who embraced it, which is 6,000 people, so not a tiny number, was 45% more productive just to compare”
Undated
Todd McKinnon said customers, and then the government, pushed IBM to sell software and operating systems separately from its hardware.
“customers finally got fed up with IBM and said, You have to sell software and operating systems and applications independent from the hardware.”
Undated
GNP's main operational system is mainframe-based with IBM components and has run for a little over twenty years.
“Our main operational system is a mainframe-based map with IBM components. System has been running for a little bit over twenty years.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says hybrid cloud and AI software make up almost half of IBM's total revenue.
“IBM is largely a hybrid cloud and A I software company. We have made the transition to that's almost half our total revenue.”
Undated
Krishna says hardware accounts for about 20% of IBM's business.
“And then we have about 20% that is hardware. I realize many people think that we are largely a hardware company, but that is just a fifth of the company”
Undated
Krishna says IBM spun off its IT services business because it was declining about 5% a year and would have made the company's growth targets harder to meet.
“If you say and conclude revenue growth is essential, then something which is itself declining at 5% is something that should not be part of it.”
Undated
Krishna describes Confluent, IBM's latest acquisition, as the best in the world at making data real-time using Kafka.
“Confluent with its Kafka backbone is the best in the world at taking data and making it real-time for all the purposes that you might want to use it for.”
Undated
IBM's Granite family of open-weight AI models has no model above 100 billion parameters.
“We have open weight models called the granite family, but in there, I'll note we have not built a single model that's over 100 billion parameters”
Undated
Krishna says IBM's stock was down about 25% in the software sell-off, versus 40 to 60% for many software companies.
“we are down about twenty five. So so, in some sense, we are taking a hit”
Undated
Krishna says the Spyre card lets a fully populated IBM Z17 mainframe run 450 billion AI inferences per day in line with transactions.
“That lets you, in a fully populated mainframe, do 450 billion inferences per day on the platform at zero latency and right in line”
Undated
The IBM Z17 mainframe includes post-quantum cryptography to protect data against future quantum attacks.
“we have post quantum cryptography built right into the platform.”
Undated
Krishna says IBM's team recently showed quantum computers can predict magnetic properties of materials.
“our team just showed that you can predict magnetic properties of materials using quantum computers.”
Undated
Krishna spent his first ten years at IBM as a researcher before moving into business management roles including databases and semiconductors.
“I spent my first ten years. I'll use probably a more extreme. I was an introverted researcher for ten years.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says IBM's Watson winning Jeopardy woke the world up to AI and spurred other companies to invest heavily.
“I think when we, uh, won Jeopardy with Watson, I think it woke the world up.”
Undated
Krishna says one Watson mistake was entering healthcare, where IBM had few salespeople who dealt with doctors or the FDA.
“Mistake number three, how many IBMers sell to doctors, and how many of those IBMers deal with the FDA?”
Undated
Krishna says IBM missed the public cloud wave, along with client-server computing.
“I would say public cloud was one of them, candidly, that we missed.”
Undated
Krishna says IBM's internal AI efforts returned about ten times their cost after the second year.
“After year two, we were definitely getting a return that was ten x compared to what we were spending.”
Undated
Krishna says IBM's software developers are about 40% more productive than they were two years earlier.
“So our software developers are probably 40% more productive today than they were two years ago.”
Undated
Krishna says about 30% of headcount in back-office operations such as compliance, accounts payable and procurement may not be needed within a few years.
“I would not be surprised if about 30% of the total headcount in those areas is not needed within a few years.”
Undated
Krishna says a mainframe suits a single workload with very high volume, such as airline reservations, unlike a data center that divides work across many machines.
“A mainframe is really useful when you have one piece of work that has an incredible volume.”
Undated
Krishna says IBM is on roughly its fourth attempt at building a digital sales channel during his tenure.
“I can think about our digital sales channel, something we're still working on. We're probably on our fourth try in my tenure, but we're not gonna give up.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said IBM's Watson mistakes included building monolithic applications and choosing healthcare, a hard domain.
“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.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said 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.”
Undated
Bob Safian cited IBM as having unlocked about $4.5 billion of efficiency from AI.
“you've, you know, unlocked four, $4.5 billion of efficiency from AI”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said about 30% of headcount in operations functions like compliance, accounts payable and procurement may not be needed within a few years.
“I would not be surprised if about 30% of the total headcount in those areas is not needed within a few years.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said mainframes suit single high-volume workloads such as airline reservations, where one seat must not be sold twice.
“A mainframe is really useful when you have one piece of work that has an incredible volume. Example airline reservations.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said IBM is on about its fourth attempt at building a digital sales channel during his tenure.
“We're probably on our fourth try in my tenure, but we're not gonna give up it.”
Undated
IBM Consulting has $21 billion in revenue, according to the host.
“Andy Baldwin runs offerings and growth for IBM Consulting, which has $21 billion in revenue.”
Undated
IBM uses about sixty AI models internally, all visible on a single observability layer.
“I can go onto my observability layer and I can see the sixty models that we're currently using across IBM, sixty models.”
Undated
IBM calls its practice of deploying AI at scale across its own organization 'client zero'.
“We call it client zero.”
Undated
Outside IT, finance, HR and procurement are the functions where IBM does the most AI work, per Baldwin.
“finance, H R and procurement are the three functions that we're doing most. W outside of I T, we're doing most work on from an IBM point of view.”
Undated
IBM deployed an in-house coding tool called Bob to its more than 300,000 employees.
“we've deployed something called Bob, which is our in hou, our our in house, you know, co coding platform model to all of our, you know, sort of 300,000 plus people.”
Undated
Baldwin says IBM, along with Google, is among the leading organizations researching quantum computing.
“we're along with, I think, Google, we're probably one of the leading organizations researching quantum in IBM.”
Undated
Baldwin says IBM announced plans to be among the first quantum chip manufacturers, building a site in the United States.
“we're going to be one of the first, um, quantum chip manufacturers in the world. We're building a a a site in the United States.”
Undated
IBM identified 15,000 to 20,000 employees whose skills face declining client demand and is giving them retraining plans.
“We've identified fifteen, 20,000 people from a skills point of view, that we look at these skills and we say these skills are in declining demand from clients.”
Undated
Baldwin describes IBM as an organization of about 300,000 people and an $80 billion business.
“I say this as an organization with, you know, 300,000 people, 80 billion business.”
Undated
Baldwin cites Copilot and IBM's Watson Orchestrate as tools that provide new user experiences while still accessing legacy source systems.
“you're seeing the power of tools, you know, of like Watson Orchestrate, in that you can have a different user experience, but still access the source system.”
Undated
Daniel Whitenack said news highlights reported that IBM's stock plunged about 25 percent.
“IBM had a major hit in their stock, so 25 stock plunge, which is is kind of crazy.”
Undated
Daniel Whitenack said IBM's single-session collapse erased about $70 billion in market value.
“25 single trading session collapse, which is about 70 billion in market value.”
Undated
Daniel Whitenack said analysts cite companies moving technology budgets away from enterprise software and services as a dynamic behind IBM's fall.
“companies are diverting their IT budget or their technology budget away from enterprise software and and services”
Undated
Shahir Daya says he spent twenty-seven years at IBM before joining Zafin and saw that regulated organizations must lock down their taxonomy early or struggle for a decade.
“I spent twenty seven years at IBM before joining Zafin, and the pattern I saw over and over again in regulated environments is that the taxonomy is the thing you either lock down early or you fight for the next decade.”
Undated
Daniel Whitenack cites Anthropic, OpenAI, IBM and AWS as vendors offering opinionated, vertically integrated agent stacks.
“inbuilt agent features in Anthropic or OpenAI's platform, but also others, whether it's like IBM Watson agent thingy”
Undated
Eric Schmidt describes his career as spanning the IBM mainframe, PC, internet, social media and AI eras.
“I started off in the IBM uh mainframe era, and through the PC era, then the internet area, then the social media era, and now AI.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says agents now write roughly half the code at his company and that it is better than previous code.
“We use, uh, agents and coding agents now for probably half the code that is written inside our place, and it is superior to what was being written before.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says the IBM mainframe has lasted sixty-five years because it was vertically integrated.
“The IBM mainframe has lasted sixty five years. Why? It was vertically integrated.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says IBM today designs its own chips and writes most of its software but does not operate the chip fabrication plant.
“Today, the only piece we don't do is the actual fab.”
Episodes