Former IBM chairman and CEO Louis Gerstner dies at 83
2025-12-29_11-33 • 1m 48s
Joe Kernen (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:00.360
Former
IBM
chairman
and
CEO
Louis
Gershner
has
died
at
age
83.
IBM
chairman
and
CEO
Arvind
Krishna
announcing
Gershner's
death
in
an
email
to
employees
yesterday.
The
message
did
not
specify
a
cause
of
death.
He
became
the
first
outsider
to
run
IBM
when
he
took
the
top
job
at
Joe Kernen (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:22.360
the
company
in
1993
coming
to
the
role
from
the
CEO,
a
position
at
RJR
Nabisco.
I
thought
It
Becky Quick (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:31.600
might
be
right,
yeah.
Uh,
I
saw
him
not
too
Joe Kernen (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:35.120
long
ago.
Um,
he
was
credited
with
turning
around
IBM's
business
and
pivoting
the
company
towards
services.
IBM's
stock
was
up
more
than
700%
during
his
tenure.
Recently,
he
had
a
bit
of
a
resurgence,
but
had
some
real
tough
years
in
terms
of
revenue
and
everything
else.
Became
Joe Kernen (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:54.400
old
tech,
became
legacy
tech.
Becky Quick (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:56.640
He
retired
Joe Kernen (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:57.200
from
the
company
in
2002.
You
might
call
became
the
chairman
of
the
Carlyle
Group
until
2008
and
we
send
sympathies
to
his
family
and
I
am
just
hearing
about
this
now
I
didn't
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
01:14.080
Yeah,
it
was
kind
of
a
I
mean
really
important
figure
in
the
whole
90s
kind
of
restructuring
wave
you
know
I
mean
it
got
a
lot
of
criticism
about
the
time
I
think
there
were
350,000
IBM
employees
in
the
early
90s
there
are
270
now
and
the
company
is
vastly
bigger
in
market
value
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
01:29.120
his
book
was
who
says
elephants
can't
dance,
which
was
about
his
remaking
of
IBM.
And
I
think
it's
a
reminder
it's
relevant
now
as
big
companies
are
dealing
with
technological
productivity
shifts
and
all
the
rest
of
it.
That
the
whole
90s
was
full
of
large
legacy
companies
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
01:42.800
shedding
a
lot
of
employees
and
and
getting
their
costs
in
line
and
you
know
Gerson
was
was
right
there
with
all
that.
So
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