Can't help but think Whitehurst has generally played a financial blinder here. He sold up Red Hat for a mega-premium before the hyperscale clouds could eat Red Hat's lunch, and he's hung around just long enough in Big Blue to see out his lockup and make sure the company wasn't just immediately turned into another Watson bag of hammers.
IBM President and former Red Hat boss Jim Whitehurst quits
Former president and CEO of Red Hat, Jim Whitehurst, is quitting the biz less than two years after rocking up at Big Blue, the hard-pressed business claimed today. "Our hybrid cloud and AI strategy is strongly resonating with clients," intoned CEO Arvind Krishna in a blog post. Maybe not so much for Whitehurst, it appears, as …
COMMENTS
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Saturday 3rd July 2021 15:54 GMT Lord Elpuss
Re: Words
"Whitehurst was also to be paid up to $6m in a cash retention payment, and got the first installment in July 2020. The second was due this month and the third in July 2022."
So assuming IBM made the criteria defined in Jim's contract, he'll likely have received 2 instalments. He won't (or shouldn't) receive the third.
#words
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Saturday 3rd July 2021 15:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Goodye Reformers, Hello Counter-revolution
Whitehurst was actually making some headway on culture change but the internal reaction, amongst those of us who saw this as the best thing since sliced bread or at least since our companies were acquired by IBM and our cultures extinguished along with most of the acquisition value, is that this Prague Spring is over and Krishna has sent in the traditionalist tanks to crush openness, innovation and the chinks of positive risk taking that has started to appear in dark corners.
The message is clear - one better line up behind an executive patron, CYA and toe the line or else the way forward is the exit door.
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Saturday 3rd July 2021 16:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Goodye Reformers, Hello Counter-revolution
I do not see it like that. Culture reformation has been largely absent, there have been no meaningful shifts in any direction. Welcome to the New IBM Culture, same as the Old IBM Culture.
A major reason for Jim departing is likely that he cannot make any meaningful change; he has probably been banging his head against the (blue) wall for the last two years and has now decided it's not worth the headache.
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Wednesday 7th July 2021 16:22 GMT cjcox
Another possibility?
At IBM, how those outside of IBM perceive them is everything.
The CentOS takeover and destruction, while it might not seem like a "big deal", was sort of a black eye to IBM reputation wise.
"Thou shall not do that."
Have a feeling this wasn't a simple "step down" by Whitehurst.