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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.

Lou Gerstner

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Lou Gerstner
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 1
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More quotes by Lou Gerstner

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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.
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Every now and then, a technology comes along that is so profound, so powerful, so universal, that its impact will change everything. It will transform every institution in the world. It will create winners and losers, will change the way we do business, the way we teach our children, communicate and interact as individuals.
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I have always believed you cannot run a successful enterprise from behind a desk.
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You don't get points for predicting rain. You get points for building arks.
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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.
Lou Gerstner
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For the first month, I listened, and I tried very hard not to draw conclusions
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I'm leery of legislative solutions to what is morality.
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You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.
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Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.
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Customer complaints are the schoolbooks from which we learn.
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The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.
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We built this company from the customer back, not from the company out.
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The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything.
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Everything starts with the customer.
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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.
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People don't do what you expect but what you inspect.
Lou Gerstner
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If the practices and processes inside a company don't drive the execution of values, then people don't get it. The question is, do you create a culture of behavior and action that really demonstrates those values and a reward system for those who adhere to them?
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IBM needed - an enormous sense of urgency.
Lou Gerstner
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Visit USA.gov and you'll find thousands of directorates, agencies, boards, offices, and services replete with overlapping responsibilities, ancient priorities, and divided accountability.
Lou Gerstner
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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.
Lou Gerstner