I have always believed you cannot run a successful enterprise from behind a desk.

Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.

You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.

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

I think values are really, really important, but I also think that too many values are just words.

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.

Customer complaints are the schoolbooks from which we learn.