
IBM Fired as Many as 100k in Recent Years, Lawsuit Shows - thmslee
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-31/ibm-fired-as-many-as-100-000-in-recent-years-court-case-shows
======
js8
Of course, the explanation is BS, everybody sees that.

But I want to comment that as a young mainframer (I started 14 years ago at
the age of 26, with a big IBM competitor), I really enjoyed working with older
people.

They work quite hard (they have survived lots of changes in the organization,
and that - in majority of cases - means that their contribution was
appreciated somewhere), often are less crazy (they are set in life, don't have
to "compete" anymore), don't panic or get overexcited too much (they have seen
lot of stuff and that moderates their emotions), have good stories from life
(they lived through one already), and you can learn from them a lot (they
often have weird experience in areas that you would never expect).

And a youngster can complement them nicely - trying out new things,
implementing new technology, experiment, bring new viewpoints; often they will
appreciate your energy to do that.

~~~
kchamplewski
I'm curious, how many real competitors are there to IBM in the mainframe
space? From what I've seen the majority of the products in use are basically
IBM only.

~~~
avar
The main competitor isn't other mainframes, but PCs.

A lot of mainframe users never needed a mainframe, they just didn't want to
get fired for not buying IBM. Other users need some sort of mainframe
reliability, but that's also achievable on a distributed system running on
unreliable PCs.

There are some users whose use is genuinely deeply entwined with features
mainframes provide, but those are dying out.

~~~
oblio
> Other users need some sort of mainframe reliability, but that's also
> achievable on a distributed system running on unreliable PCs.

I don't buy this. Many of our critical systems are on PC architectures.
Mainframes don't have some magic sauce, well designed distributed
architectures should offer enough reliability.

Edit: reading comprehension fail, please ignore my comment :-)

~~~
avar
Even with your edit this is worth replying to:

Why waste your money on a single rack-mounted PC when you can buy 40 cheap
cellphones running Android and network them together. That'll probably provide
greater reliability.

The obvious answer is the same as why some use mainframes over PCs. You can't
easily convert all workloads running on a rack-mounted PC to a network of
cellphones. Similarly, you can't easily convert all programs running on
mainframes to running on PCs.

Which is what I was alluding to with the last paragraph in my upthread
comment. There are mainframe use-cases that are genuinely entwined with those
hardware platforms. A mainframe isn't just a fridge-sized PC.

~~~
makomk
The obvious answer is that a stack of cheap cellphones running Android is a
pain to develop for, deploy and manage compared to something actually designed
for server use. These are probably not areas where mainframes have the upper
hand this century.

------
xvector
When I went to the multi-day IBM recruiting event for new grads about 2 years
ago, there were red flags ALL OVER the place. It was frankly ridiculous.
Talking with some employees they were basically saying "don't work here" as
plainly as they could while being watched over by IBM recruiters.

You just _knew_ you were walking into a failing company defined solely by
bureaucracy and politics with employees that don't really want to be there.

On top of this the total compensation was downright insulting even at the
upper end of the range.

Nope'd out of there pretty quickly, even though I was rather desperate for a
position at the time.

Edit: Did I mention how horrible the interview process was? You needed to
install software with admin permissions on your computer alongside having your
webcam active the whole time. Throughout the interview you needed to record
2-minute skits with random prompts given to you. Have you ever tried talking
into a webcam with no one on the other end, unprepared? What nonsense. Not
sure what anyone at IBM was thinking with this.

~~~
2sk21
I just left IBM recently myself. I was involved in a lot of recruiting work
and I know exactly what you mean. I too found the whole process completely
cringeworthy. Suitable for the FellowKids subreddit:-)

------
vegetablepotpie
I doubt IBM lays off its older workers solely to appeal to Millenials.

It's more likely that older workers are laid off because they are more
expensive due to higher higher pay, have more paid time off, use more
healthcare and are more politically calibrated to their organizations than
younger workers.

~~~
Apocryphon
It feels like something that IBM regularly does, similar to Cisco's revolving
lay-off cycles. Microserfs by Douglas Coupland has a part where the
protagonist's father is fired from IBM after being there for years.

~~~
MagnumOpus
Well, Microserfs was written in 1994, just after IBM's 1993 cataclysm where
Lou Gerstner was hired to save the company and immediately fired 160,000
people. That was very much a one-off event.

~~~
ggm
A one off event because of scale. but part of a continuation of downsizing. So
only one off in one sense not in others.

Cisco's one off downsizing has been threefold.

------
trilila
I live in east Europe, and there is an IBM branch here, and this may sound
harsh, but most of their staff complain about support from their indian
colleagues (low quality support and poor communication skills). They are
hiring "young" staff here as well, which frankly wouldn't pass a junior level
interview - wouldn't be an issue if they wouldn't advertise them as
experienced. My take is that IBM is a dying company, cutting costs, and
dealing mostly with clients in a similar position. I'd stay away from working
there.

------
angarg12
I'm an early millennial and ex IBMer. We know this is bullcrap. What sets IBM
apart from Google isn't older workers, but things that don't appeal to
millennial sensibilities: deep management hierarchies, focus in sales and
marketing instead of tech, a hellscape cubicled office out of the 50s... IBM
convinced me that Office Space is a documentary.

I would be hard pressed to find anything cool I did on my time there; quite
the opposite, everything was 'uncool': uncool offices, uncool projects, uncool
tech, uncool processes.

And to add to all that, they offer salaries and perks below market rate
compared to their direct competitors. Remember when recently IBM rescinded all
remote work arrangement for employees? Good luck attracting talent like that.

I don't think IBM is doomed just yet. Their sheer size and inertia will keep
them moving for quite a while. But if they want to keep up with the
competition they will need to pivot really really hard. Also they should we
aware of their strengths and weaknesses and not compete with Google. Just
don't.

~~~
MperorM
From all the horror stories I hear about IBM it makes me wonder whether we are
talking about the same company.

I work at IBM in europe. We have open office spaces, I will work remotely for
the entirety of next year. I guess the work I'm doing would be considered
'uncool' by most people my age (Internal Devops engineering).

I'm always surprised whenever I read just how bad it's supposed to be as it
doesn't remotely match my experience.

------
jve
Firing talent because of age is not so smart I think. Of course I don't know
who they fire, etc.

But I'm young, yeah, and I want to distance myself from IBM products.

Why? I'v been setting IBM Tivoli/Spectrum protect to backup client computers
and, ugh, is it ugly, unfriendly and complex piece of software. I'v also
touched the server part. Maybe it's just me, the windows guy (but who loves
scripting) and it is more appealing to linux-type guys. Then I got feedback
from Linux team that they also don't love that product.

They should do something about their products or product managers to be more
appealing.

After 1hr they will present IBM QRadar to us. Perhaps it will be a pretty
presentation and so. I just wonder what's it under the hood, when sysadmins
put their hands on it - any experiences someone can share?

~~~
pas
The simple fact, that IBM stuff is never used by big sites (fb, spotify,
google, etc..) despite their solutions being available for ages should lead
anyone to the conclusion that they are salesware.

QRadar is a glorified syslog server with a query interface (bought by IBM in
2011, formerly developed by Q1 Labs, est 2001), and ... again the fact that
Splunk is available (started 2 years after Q1 Labs), that the ELK stack is
even mentioned in SIEM circles, that OSSIM an open source alternative is seen
as more usable all just point to the conclusion that QRadar too is just
salesware :/

~~~
ChuckNorris89
> The simple fact, that IBM stuff is never used by big sites (fb, spotify,
> google, etc..) despite their solutions being available for ages should lead
> anyone to the conclusion that they are salesware.

They are used by big sites, governments are the biggest sites you can get.

~~~
majkinetor
Gov systems are orders of magnitude smaller then Facebook & friends.

------
znpy
I was fond of IBM (I still have their centennial book, which I find very
interesting).

I was fond of IBM... Until I had the change of being interviewed by one of
their HR people in the local branch (nothern Italy).

That was the worst interview experience ever.

This woman called me as soon as I emailed her some details about me, including
my phone number, without any kind of prior agreement or scheduling, and puth
me through an enormous amount of questions, all while being extremely rude,
until we reached the compensation topic, to which she replied that they were
looking for someone with double my experience but for less money.

Ugh.

------
fybe
I did a 6 month internship in IBM 2 years ago and I'm glad I didn't get an
offer at the end of it. The culture, the politics and the fear was too much
for me.

Every week there would be some sort of a "commotion" or "going away" party as
people were let go. It mostly DBA's and Unix Support guys that were clearly
over 40 years old.

My manager was straight up implying "if you don't get the work done, you won't
get a good reference for me and you'll be on the next list". I'm in my 20s and
that was the first time someone in a professional setting threatened me in
such manner.

I needed a reference after I left, but from my team the manager was let go, 3
out 5 team members were let go and the others and the remaining 2 left. The
manager of the manager was forced to a sabbatical and just like that poof, my
old team was gone.

I will never go back to IBM, no matter how cool and hip they make it for my
generation.

------
dang
The submitted title was "IBM fired 100,000 employees to be more appealing to
Millenials". Unless that was Bloomberg's original title and subsequently
changed, this was a case of editorializing and making a title more baity,
which breaks the site guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
We take away submission privileges from accounts who do that, so please don't
do that.

------
reustle
> International Business Machines Corp. has fired as many as 100,000 employees
> in the last few years in an effort to boost its appeal to millennials

> “The company hires 50,000 employees each year.”

> The number of IBM employees has fallen to its lowest point in six years,
> with 350,600 global workers at the end of 2018 -- a 19% reduction since
> 2013.

The fact that a company can have such high turnover and still function says
something about how much work each of those people were doing. While an
impressive effort at potentially reinvesting the culture, I bet many of those
jobs weren't necessary from the beginning.

~~~
Kneecaps07
My ex used to work there. It was an older building where everyone had their
own office. There would be hallways and hallways of offices and she had no
idea who anyone was or what they did all day. Everyone just sat in their
office with the doors closed.

~~~
lowdose
She should have recorded this with a camera and do some live private office
walk-ins saying she is from HR here to do the interview.

------
ekc
Haven't they gotten headlines for this almost every year for the past three
decades?

~~~
AmVess
Pretty much. They've been scything employees for as long as I've been working.
They've also been in court many times over age discrimination...at least for
as long as I can remember.

They had their own decently sized building where I used to live, now there
isn't a single employee in the entire state.

IBM is far past the point where they can appeal to younger folks. They have no
headspace in anyone under 40, and certainly not with anyone with any talent.

~~~
lozenge
What large company isn't in court over age discrimination? Google just settled
a class action where one job applicant was literally asked to put his
graduation year on his CV "so the engineers can see your age".

------
MegaButts
I was curious what IBM still makes that people use since they sold their
Thinkpad division to Lenovo years ago, so I googled it:

> IBM produces and sells computer hardware, middleware and software, and
> provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe
> computers to nanotechnology. IBM is also a major research organization,
> holding the record for most U.S. patents generated by a business (as of
> 2019) for 26 consecutive years.

What on Earth are all of those patents for?

~~~
rxhernandez
I had someone from IBM service my Lenovo P50 Thinkpad last week so they still
do that apparently.

~~~
atkbrah
I was also recently surprised when I made a service call for one of our
lenovos and the replies to it came from an ibm.com address.

------
devoply
More like replace 100k workers that expect work life balance for underpaid
millennial that you can exploit at submarket wages for long hours.

~~~
AmVess
They won't be replacing anyone in the US, despite what they say. They are in a
decades long quest to get rid of jobs in the USA and give them to people
elsewhere.

------
lunias
I interned at IBM a decade ago. I was studying computer science in Tucson, AZ
and was super excited to get picked up by such a well-known company. I never
wrote a line of code for them. I decommissioned assets. That is, I scoured
massive labs for ancient pieces of hardware, traversed the rat's nest of fiber
optic cabling holding them in place, extricated them from their racks, and
ultimately placed them in storage closets. The campus was massive, but largely
deserted. Senior people that I interacted with indicated that it was a cool
place in the late eighties and into the nineties. It's a boneyard now.

That being said, I was glad to get to work with some experienced people. All
of the other college-aged people that I knew there were stuck mindlessly
writing tests.

------
syshum
I am so glad they own RedHat now... IBM will not destroy everything good about
RedHat, no no /s

------
fouc
s/Millennials/Generation Z/ at this point.

Millennials are all in their 30s and older now.

~~~
flukus
> s/Millennials/Generation Z/ at this point.

I don't think that works either, Gen Z are either really early in their career
and only making up a tiny fraction of the industry or not in any career at all
yet, it's hardly the demographic IBM needs to appeal to.

As an older millennial my hair is starting to take on a grayish tinge and
ageism in the industry is becoming a direct concern, so this can only lower my
opinion of IBM.

~~~
jnbiche
Ageism in our industry should be a concern to everyone, regardless of the
amount of grey hair they have.

We all get old, after all. And more importantly, even if we didn't all get
old, it's still wrong to discriminate (we don't all become black over time,
but it's still wrong to discriminate in the basis of race).

~~~
austinprete
Not sure the comparison to race is either fitting or appropriate here.
Becoming more old undoubtedly has a negative effect on
performance/productivity at some point, I don’t think the same can ever be
said for becoming more black.

~~~
jki275
Getting “old” often increases performance and productivity though...

------
negamax
When companies can't invent because they lost their graymatter to bureaucracy
they go into an even more self destructing spiral. By cutting costs and
squeezing themselves. With open source, patent regime in end game i.e. rent
seeking. How a company like IBM can remain relevant? Their AI offering was a
major marketing campaign. Just sad but some great lessons

------
bubble_talk
Isn't this simply suppy-demand economics?

Have you ever seen a comment on HN to the effect of "yeah, if you are in the
US and not already working for one of the big tech companies, at this point
that just means you are not good enough to be working for them" (implying they
should have been interviewing there as frequently as possible until they land
in one of them, and also that every other software job falls well short in
terms of compensation - implying some kind of additional stupidity on your
part if you don't aspire to work for big tech).

Today it is IBM - tomorrow, it is going to be every other company whose
coolness falls short of the big tech companies. I wonder what alternative IBM
really had?

------
raxxorrax
Good for all those immortal millenials... Seriously, if that isn't just a
specious ground to justify firings, I think management at IBM is just
completely incompetent.

> [...] much more innovative and receptive to technology than baby boomers.

Not sure whose head has accumulated chalk, but I doubt they will find anyone
creative that doesn't immediately recognize the downsides of these
perspectives.

I don't think IBM is badly positioned in general, but their lacking
competition to bigger tech corps are due to strategic failings, which should
be attributed to management. If that cannot take responsibility, I don't know
why I should want to work for them.

------
xenospn
To be fair, I did see quite a few people who probably "officially" retired 25
years ago walking around with canes last time I visited an IBM campus. I
actually thought it was very cool and really wanted to hear their stories.

~~~
DonHopkins
Maybe you were lucky enough to spot IBM Master Inventor John Wilson testing
his smart cane that gathers data to help doctors and physical therapists
understand how well you’re recovering from an injury.

[https://ibmblr.tumblr.com/post/157117436482/yes-volumes-i-
it...](https://ibmblr.tumblr.com/post/157117436482/yes-volumes-i-its-national-
inventors-day)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz9jc5blzRM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz9jc5blzRM)

------
DonHopkins
They should freeze them for later, instead!

[https://medium.com/@donhopkins/cobol-
forever-1a49f7d28a39](https://medium.com/@donhopkins/cobol-
forever-1a49f7d28a39)

------
atoav
As a youngish person this would rather scare me away..

------
kmlx
"The number of IBM employees has fallen to its lowest point in six years, with
350,600 global workers at the end of 2018 -- a 19% reduction since 2013."

Why do they still have such huge numbers? Can't they make the company work
with just 10% of those?

------
undoware
As an older millennial, staring down the barrel of my late thirties, I can't
think of a move that would appeal to me _less_.

------
scarejunba
It's IBM. They're retarded enough to think this will work.

------
Wetly
Thanks to Robinsonbuckler@ hotmail. com! He brought my wife back! I am very
grateful!

------
masklinn
Why do people still up-vote bloomberg's clickbait garbage exactly?

------
LoSboccacc
earliest millenials are pushing 40s and younger are at least well experienced
and aware of the job market shenanigans, I don't think firing older people as
a policy would really be attractive to them. unless this was written by some
old stooge that thinks everything under 50s is young and hip, I don't see a
correlation here.

