Thread regarding IBM layoffs

@113
Someone posted awhile back that Huiming and his inner circle should go. I’d take it one step further and say Mukesh too. The site really needs a full leadership refresh. It would probably do wonders for the culture and direction there.

We should start a petition to get the Alb leadership and their cronies removed!

@ya best for both worlds

@qt yes but to IBM they are gone.

In many ways, this situation is a testament to the deeply entrenched leadership and management problems that have existed in Albany for years. The organization has a long history of making questionable and often illogical strategic and business decisions, while projecting an image and air of confidence and success that does not always align with the underlying reality.

To be fair, many of the leaders there were once highly capable engineers and researchers who achieved legitimate technical success earlier in their careers a decade or more ago. But technical competence and effective organizational leadership are not the same thing. Excelling in engineering decades ago does not automatically translate into an ability to make sound business decisions, build sustainable strategy, or manage complex institutions effectively.

There is also a tendency to heavily market certain initiatives as transformational successes without critically examining the actual outcomes. Take nanosheet technology as an example. Based on the way it is discussed publicly, one could easily come away with the impression that Albany originated, invented or pioneered the concept in 2010s. In reality, that is not the case (Hisamoto Tetsuya et al at Hitachi, Jean-Pierre Colinge, etc. in 90s and early 2000s). More importantly, the real measure of success is adoption and commercial impact. If no one is meaningfully licensing or purchasing the Albany implementation, can it genuinely be framed as a major victory? Reproducing and iterating on existing work is not the same thing as creating commercially successful innovation. Intel, Samsung and TSMC created their own without any assistance or licensing from IBM. So it is essentially a flop for the site.

The same dynamic applies to many of the JDAs and partnerships that the Albany site heavily relies upon financially and for revenue/income. These collaborations are often presented as evidence of strategic strength, yet a significant number either fail to produce meaningful long-term outcomes or eventually devolve into disputes, litigation, or fractured partnerships, as seen in situations involving GlobalFoundries and many others over the years.

Ultimately, the broader concern is not that Albany lacks talented people or technical capability. It is that the Albany leadership culture often appears far more skilled at managing perception and preserving internal power structures than at demonstrating measurable strategic success or accountability.

TLDR: Albany leadership doesn’t know what they are doing but are damn good at pretending they do.

The Anderon spinoff is just the continued IBM goal to pay for innovation (just like SW division) vs developing it themselves. Call it the al la cart strategy. Only divisions that use the innovation pay for it. You can pass thru the cost as you are a monopoly.
IBM actually started down this path with GF and the spinoff of semiconductors. Yes it ended in disaster due to IBM’s poor contract terms. (100% spinoff with no control over GF future design promises. How did that work out when GF changed their minds and halted innovation development. IBM lost at least two years of competitive advantage when they had to go partner with Samsung
So what did IBM learn from the GF spinoff. Hold some equity in the spinoff so you have bargaining power over the spinoffs future. THUS IBM holding 50% of Anderon

@qm but they still have jobs

I would speculate that everyone on site at Albany will be in scope. IBM has no where else internally for you to land. Management that resides at corporate may escape, BUT for the most part if you are located at Albany, you are going to the new entity. The reason I say this, is IBM wants to reduce their pure play research costs, and their ante to the new partners is their experienced personnel, design tools, IP, and on site HW/toolsets. The only folks who may escape are the chip designers who work on the legacy enterprise team (eg Telum and Spyre AI teams). Remember it’s all about costs and IBM’s job 1 is cost reduction.

@qj they are off IBM’s books.

@qd how is it a layoff if the new company continues to employ them

@nn Yup — a relatively cheap and effective way to move a large number of employees off IBM’s books without triggering WARN obligations or generating the kind of negative media attention that typically accompanies formal layoffs. From a strategic standpoint, it’s actually a fairly sophisticated maneuver with considerable upside for IBM. But make no mistake: regardless of how it is packaged or framed publicly, it is still fundamentally a layoff.

I hope some of you are getting what I'm saying about upskilling. You control your destiny and whether you're laid off

I won't be so Accessible later when I'm anExecutive. Im very busy now too but I like to Give back when I can. Everyone should RTO tomorrow even if Monday is your usual day.

Isn’t this whole thing a covert layoff by IBM?

@ms there are Americans in leadership there if you count first and second line managers .

@mr while there is definitely a large amount of Indians in leadership roles in Albany it’s not all Indian, but are any actually American?

@mb sure, same as always - it's corrupt Indians protecting corrupt Indians.

It's the IBM India mantra brought to your by Alvind and company.

@kt you damn well know none of our “leaders” would be caught dead at the new company Anderon. They will remain safe behind the blue wall of IBM while the push the rest out to suffer for their incompetence and sins

@kx

When does Robbie the Hood ThomA$$ bliviate on this? The wannabe future CEO always blogs

@kx same on Facebook even! That really surprised me

@OP What I find hilarious are all of the IBMers who wrote these cheerleader LinkedIn posts after this announcement was made. Wish people would think and reflect more about these decisions before just get excited.

@kp and @ks I promise you bubulas they have all dehumanized many of their subordinates and covered it up with no regrets at all

@kh
If none of those leaders ultimately transition over, it will speak volumes about how attractive or credible this “opportunity” truly is for everyone else expected to follow. Now, if not a single one of them makes the transition/move, then it may be time for others to seriously reevaluate the long-term outlook and stability of their own careers within this transition.

@kp all the protected people in Albany, management or not will be fine. No need to list names.

@kh

Why must you continue to dehumanize people? This hate is being spewed thick and hot. ENOUGH

@Gf. I believe they will own 50%

@g9 won’t they still own Anderson ?

Remember Job 1 at IBM under AK and the CFO is lower costs no matter what.
Did it via PIP’s
DId it via layoffs
DId it via spinoffs
DId it via offshoring
SO the real question is how does the formation of Anderon feed Job 1 of lowering costs

I suspect it lowers research costs via adding more investors to a limited sized pool and offloads 1-2k worth of researchers

I also suspect IBM will be able to license their existing IP to Anderon

Finally I suspect IBM will capture revenue if Anderon develops any sellable IP as they own 50%

@fz posting news articles about all the money coming into Albany ibm

@fh
What are they saying on FB?

This deal is probably about as real as the Iran deal.

@et so this whole announcement of all this investment hasn’t made people in Albany feel more secure about their jobs again the way it was a few years ago? So many are posting about it on fb

@er
At this stage, the situation remains surprisingly unclear. You would expect an announcement of this magnitude to have been fully structured and communicated before going public, but the overall plan still feels exceptionally murky and lacking in transparency. There have been a few internal AMAs discussions, yet most of the responses have been fairly noncommittal and haven’t provided much real clarity.

The only aspect that appears relatively settled is that a large portion of the Quantum organization will be pushed into the new company.

@eg won’t they still have jobs with a new company ? Is the whole Albany site becoming anderon

All these past comments before on this board about cronyism and politics in Albany maybe now finally come out very clear. After dust settle, people can see very easy where certain people and leaders go and what side they land on.

If the so-called secret cabal IBM mafia, like many local people call it, still all stay safe and protected inside IBM, then it make rumors look very true that insider group is really running the site. It also show internal politics has always been more important here than merit, fairness, or accountability.

It is an IBM layoff with extra steps

Albany has been a slow-motion train wreck for years now, and at this point it’s hard to even pretend otherwise. The same leadership has been circling the drain for the better part of a decade, recycling the same tired habits of corruption, cronyism, and career-first politics dressed up as governance.

What’s most frustrating is how predictable it’s all become. Any real accountability gets smothered, while the same group keeps managing to hang on like nothing ever changes. It’s the same names, the same dynamics, the same outcomes just repackaged each cycle.

A serious reset has been overdue for a long time, but instead it feels like things are being left to rot in place. And as usual, the recent developments don’t look like they’ll fix anything. They just seem to guarantee the same bad apples will keep doing what they’ve always done and thrive.

@A7. I believe you have hit upon what IBM is up to. Spread the development risk for 1-2 NM semiconductor research, and capitalize on the IP investment. ÌBM has tried to do this in the past (Samsung, Intel, Lam, etc etc), but partners come and go. By getting the Fed’s involved I believe IBM is hoping for some longer term commitments PLUS having a funding partner.

@a4
Hmmm, perhaps this is a way to create a revenue stream: spin off Anderon with government funding and then have Anderon pay IBM for consulting services. That could effectively create a steady flow of revenue and route public funding back into IBM through consulting arrangements.

If that’s accurate, it raises questions about how the funding and payments are structured and whether there are any concerns about transparency or appropriate use of government funds.

It may be worth a closer review of the arrangement and the underlying accounting and contracting practices.

Anyone remember the deal Trump announced for Foxconn to build a $10B plant in Wisconsin?

Anyone remember the Oracle OpenAI $300B cloud deal?

This is just yet another announcement designed to create a stock price pop that will go absolutely nowhere. Hopefully Polymarket will start taking bets on whether this "quantum foundry" ever gets built. I'd bet every dollar I have on "no".