IBM needed - an enormous sense of urgency.

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

This really is a merger of equals. I wouldn't have come back to work for anything less than this fantastic opportunity. This lets me combine my two great loves - technology and biscuits.

If the practices and processes inside a company don't drive the execution of values, then people don't get it. The question is, do you create a culture of behavior and action that really demonstrates those values and a reward system for those who adhere to them?

The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.

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

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.