Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Quotes

“Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“If CEO compensation was performance-driven, which I believe it was in IBM's case, nobody would ever argue. If the shareholders didn't make billions and billions of dollars, I wouldn't make millions of dollars. My salary was the same for 10 years. It was all performance-based.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“Watch the turtle. He only moves forward by sticking his neck out.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

Whether the task is fixing health care, upgrading K-12 education, bolstering national security, or a host of other missions, the U.S. is better at patching problems than fixing them.

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“It's about communication. It's about honesty. It's about treating people in the organization as deserving to know the facts. You don't try to give them half the story. You don't try to hide the story. You treat them as - as true equals, and you communicate and you communicate and communicate.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

What I'm trying to do is deliver results, not promises; results, not vision; results, not concepts. The world is cynical about IBM's promises.

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“The value that some analysts put on revenue vs. what they put on profit is out of whack. If you can grow real cash earnings, that's 80% of what you ought to do, and the revenue component is 20%.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“Reorganization to me is shuffling boxes, moving boxes around. Transformation means that you're really fundamentally changing the way the organization thinks, the way it responds, the way it leads. It's a lot more than just playing with boxes.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

People don't do what you expect but what you inspect.

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“Successful enterprises are built from the ground up. You can't assemble them with a bunch of acquisitions.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“The real mechanism for corporate governance is the active involvement of the owners.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“A lot of people saved IBM. Yes, I was the leader of that team, but I could never have done it without a group of IBMers helping me.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“Compensation needs to be predominately performance-driven. If CEO compensation was performance-driven, which I believe it was in IBM's case, nobody would ever argue. If the shareholders didn't make billions and billions of dollars, I wouldn't make millions of dollars.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“The Internet is ultimately about innovation and integration, but you don't get the innovation unless you integrate Web technology into the processes by which you run your business.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“I think that my leadership style is to get people to fear staying in place, to fear not changing.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

I'm leery of legislative solutions to what is morality.

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“This really is a merger of equals. I wouldn't have come back to work for anything less than this fantastic opportunity. This lets me combine my two great loves - technology and biscuits.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“The fundamental issue is: In the world of the Internet, is there a place for a packager of services? Does the customer want to go surf the Net and go to every one of 50,000 Web sites? Or will people pay a reasonable amount for somebody to go out and preselect and package what they want? My guess is they will both coexist.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“The world is full of CEOs that think that just because they write a memo or they write a letter inside an annual report or they give a little video speech that gets sent around the company, they think that's what's really going to affect employees.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“Visit USA.gov and you'll find thousands of directorates, agencies, boards, offices, and services replete with overlapping responsibilities, ancient priorities, and divided accountability.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“I initially wanted to be a teacher, and then I was going to become an engineer and build bridges and highways, but pretty soon I went into the business world. I never did get to be a teacher except in a different way.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

Quite frankly, I am not very comfortable in chitchat. When I go to board meetings, I arrive two minutes before and leave when it's over. I don't stay for lunch or go early and have coffee.

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“I firmly believe that IBM's size can be used to its advantage.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“If life was so easy that you could just go buy success, there would be a lot more successful companies in the world.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“The next thing is: we can make IBM even better. We brought IBM back but we're gunning for leadership.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“I've been accepted at Cambridge University. I want to study Chinese history and archaeology. I want to become a student. I want to read Chinese history and go on a dig.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“The networked world offers the promise that maybe the information technology industry will start to, for the first time in a decade or so, address CEO-level issues.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“When a manufacturing company in Spain looks to IBM for a solution to a problem, they expect us to bring the best of IBM worldwide to it, not just the experience of IBM Spain.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“When I arrived at IBM, there were 'Team' signs all around. I asked, 'How do people get paid?' They told me, 'We pay people based on individual performance.'”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“You know, you don't need a leader to sort of administer something that's going very well. In fact, in one sense, an overly ambitious person in that circumstance can probably screw it up.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“I want to take IBM back to its roots.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“My parents worked enormously hard to put four children through college. We didn't have a lot of money.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“Our military should be trained and structured around missions, not the elements of air, water, and land.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“What we believe is going to be very important is the delivery of traditional software and services and hardware over the Net. That's a form of electronic marketplace.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

“We do not need Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Education; we need a single Department of Skills that will promote an integrated approach to global competitiveness.”

— Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.