IBMers on PIPs and the Age (or Cost) Factor

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 27, 2026

This morning: When IBM "Managers Have to Mark 15% of Their Teams as Low Performers" a PIP Means Likely Layoffs (Disguised as a Performance Issue)

This afternoon:

People in their 50s seem to be targeted as they are considered "expensive".

This morning we noticed that thestreet.com - a "puff piece(s) partner" of IBM - was whitewashing the principal culprit again. It didn't take long for the 'hecklers' (his workers or ex-workers) to notice and respond to that:

It's just the usual substance-free nonsense about "hey hi". It's infantile so-called 'journalism' of marketing disguised as "reporting" or "news" or "information".

"The hard truth is that IBM appears better positioned to monetize its past than to finance its future," someone said some hours ago. "Mainframe migration threatens its infrastructure base. Cloud-native ELT and zero-ETL services threaten products such as DataStage. Managed Kubernetes and free cloud Linux distributions limit Red Hat’s addressable market. IBM Cloud lacks the investment and scale to compete with the hyperscalers. IBM’s AI strategy relies heavily on infrastructure owned by other companies. Its acquisition history offers little assurance that buying another portfolio will restore enduring leadership."

The CEO's choices are what led to the current stagnation and demise. What does he give himself bigger and bigger bonuses? Where's the accountability?

There's this other new thread about PIPs today. About age and PIPs: "It's over 40 now anywhere in tech."

Even at Microsoft. █