The next thing is: we can make IBM even better. We brought IBM back but we're gunning for leadership.

I think that my leadership style is to get people to fear staying in place, to fear not changing.

You can’t mandate [cultural change], can’t engineer it. What you can do is create the conditions for transformation. You can provide incentives. You can define the marketplace realities and goals. But then you have to trust. In fact, in the end, management doesn’t change culture. Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.

Lou Gerstner knows how to do a deal, and George Bush Sr., less so.

I just think we should look at this as a chess match," he said, "between the world's greatest chess player and Garry Kasparov.

I look for people who work to solve problems and help colleagues, I sack politicians.

You don't get points for predicting rain. You get points for building arks.