In the previous posts in this three-part series (see Part 1 and Part 2), I wrote about how I discovered a set of common themes that span across all my podcast episodes, even though the IBM Fellows cover a broad range of technical areas at IBM. In this final blog post, I want to talk about the theme of “Life Stories.” While less technical, it is the aspect of the podcast that I enjoy the most.
Theme: Life Stories
If you have ever talked with one of them, you will know that IBM Fellows are storytellers. It’s part of their DNA. Besides advancing technology in their respective fields, they are often asked to explain the why, what and how to someone not skilled in that field. This is also what makes doing podcasts with IBM Fellows so easy. They are fun to talk to, eager to share what they know, and they all have their individual story about how they got there.
In some cases, the answer to my question “Could you introduce yourself to us?” took up the entire episode, and that’s quite okay. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t come with a set of pre-written questions to the recording and instead let the guest drive where it’s going.
In the process, the conversations come with a ton of career advice. You don’t become an IBM Fellow without being exceptionally smart and really good at what you do, of course. But you also need to be good at how you do it, so to speak. Building personal networks, seeing—and grabbing—opportunities for advancement when they appear, and being passionate about what you do are examples for traits I have noticed across these accomplished IBM Fellows.
I am willing to bet that none of them started their career by saying “I will be a Fellow at IBM one day.” You cannot create a career plan that will inevitably lead to this desired outcome. There is a factor of “being at the right place at the right time” that I noticed in many of the stories about how my guests became what they are today.
These conversations were also a constant reminder that one of the clear benefits of working for a large company like IBM, which is involved in many different fields, is that it allows one to regularly change job roles—and even entire fields—across the IT industry. I have talked to guests who turned from being software experts to hardware experts, who went from working on Java compilers to developing AI-optimized mainframe chips, from research to consulting, and more.
Highlights
I’ll let some of the stories speak for themselves:
- Faried Abrahams described how he grew up in apartheid South Africa, came across a computer almost by accident, and had the benefit of multiple mentors along the way that supported and enabled him to eventually go to university in the United States and join IBM. His was a truly inspiring story and one that he admitted he hadn’t shared publicly before our recording.
- My longtime friend Ajay Apte gave an example of how sometimes your career can take very unexpected turns. After spending many years in software development, on application servers and other middleware, he was asked to help revamp IBM’s cloud data centers and introduce a new generation of servers. He is now tasked with ensuring sustainability across globally distributed data centers.
- Grady Booch is a legend among software engineers. He is one of the inventors of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) that—at least for some time—was the de-facto standard to describe software systems. During our talk, he got up and started showing me items he had in his office, and I didn’t dare tell him that this was an audio podcast and that no one would be able to see what he was talking about. When we were done, he said “and now I have to go surfing.” He lives in Maui, Hawaii, by the way.
- Rob High’s career took him from application servers (he is one of the original architects of IBM’s WebSphere), to AI, to edge computing, to networking. So, he serves as a great example of someone who has had significant influence and impact in a number of different fields.
- One of my favorite episodes is the one with John Cohn. John is a bit of a rockstar, even within the small community of IBM Fellows. Besides his work at IBM, he is also a reality TV star! He creates and sells “SamStones,” little rocks that can be found across the planet in honor of his son who died at a young age. His excitement for engineering and exploration is nothing but contagious. I could have talked to him for hours. By the way, John is also a fan of headbands with blinking LED lights, and since I talked to him in December, he was wearing a Santa hat with blinking lights during our conversation. A bit distracting, I might add.
Hopefully, these examples all show how insightful these conversations have been. Some of the guests I have worked with for many years, some of them I met for the first time when we did the recording. In either case, I learned from every one of them a ton about personal adventures, technical challenges and the diverse set of roles IBM offers to address them.
I hope my blogs show how much I enjoy the conversations, and I hope you will feel the same if you listen to them. I certainly intend to continue the series. If you can think of any other topics I should cover—or if you have any comments or feedback or questions—please let me know.
Check out the Hybrid Cloud Forecast
Please see the Hybrid Cloud Forecast landing page to check out all the
episodes we have to offer, and keep an eye out for the other two blog posts in
this three-part series.
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