#business

The promise of not laying off anyone but then days later everyone gets an early email! So disheartening and the firing of researchers and not giving a dam. What's the point of this college if not for research? All of this will bite them in the butt and opening up schools overseas is ridiculous 🙄 Everyone higher up needs to be FIRED! As well hiring people that do not know how to do their job! Why are contacting seniors in the summer who have already picked their colleges! Those new deans do not care about students and treat it as a business!!

Why would current businesses hire failed execs from companies
Scale and scope or is it for contacts to bring business deals from companies they were fired from

T-Mobile is making leadership changes, including the departure of Mike Katz and the
rebuilding of the Un carrier spirit. The company is seeing progress in enterprise and
small-sized businesses, but the success of T-Mobile for Business is unclear. The
speakers discuss the potential for growth in the mobile business and the importance
of maintaining a fixed cost versus variable cost decision.The potential for disruptive companies to move into themobile space, with T-Mobile and Charter expected to see strong growth. TheSo we got some leadership changes taking place across the industry. Most recently, T Mobile where Mike Katz is stepping away after two decades. Coming on board at T Mobile as their new chief enterprise officer is Chris Sambar, who will be leadingthe SMB enterprises and government businesses. What we are observing here at T Mobile is with Srini Gopalan, a rebuilding, and we talked about thiswhen Srini came on board, a rebuilding of the Un carrier into a company that is even more focused
now on execution than it was ever before.With Greenie now being deeper in the saddle, and we saw like half a dozen of senior execs already leaving, the senior leadership team is like three quarters new.We see that Sriniis putting his team in place. You know, Andre Almeida, who came from Europe, oneof his close lieutenants of Srini's lieutenants, he ran the expanded enterprise group that not only hasbusiness init, but also like key ads and the Al efforts. He is now moving over as the president of marketing.It will be very interesting of how Andre will do that.They hired Chris Sambar, who, up until about two years ago, was at AT&T, a highly respected executive, a terrific leader, straight sho-ter, great executor, one of the architects and implementers of AT&T's FirstNet success story. For the last two years, he was like the COO of a storage company, and
now he's coming back to telecom. With Chris, T Mobile is getting a terrific executive. When we look at T Mobile for Business, they're making progress. They're growing. For somebody like Chris to come in, there's only upside,you know? In comparison, it's a huge number as a multiple. In absolute numbers, we always knew it was like.modest, but you have to start somewhere. And so, Andre is handing over that portfolio, and | think Chris will execute very well here. Yes. It will. Yeah. Well, let's see exactly where Chris takes this. On his farewell LinkedIn post or his goodbye to T Mobile LinkedIn post, Katz mentioned that he startedas ajunior in college as anin store sales rep. And with him, T Mobile and you have to give TMobile a lot of credit for rewriting telecom and, as they like to say, changing wireless for the better.He has a big role in this. He was also instrumental in forging the MVNO between the cable companiesand T Mobile for the business side. He never got enough credit for this. He was kind of the unsunghero here. | watched this over like five years happening, and how this slowly progressed forward.And without him, T Mobile would not have closed that MVNO agreement. You know, the cable companies just recently, and | don't think there was a big announcement about it,
they fully launched on T Mobile. | would say that the cable guys the cable guys are coming for small and mid.Now that
they have an offer where they can address up to a thousand lines, | would expect that the cable companies will get a lot, lot stronger in business on the mobile side.So, it will be an increasingly crowded space where three very disruptive companies, T Mobile witha new leader, Charter and Comcast, especially a Charter that will have absorbed Cox soon, play the.business market You know, we mentioned it before, T Mobile made about six monthsago the opposite decision of adding more company owned stores. For me, more company owned stores means you're more bullish that you have pretty consistent traffic where you put them.Whereas the variable decision, you don't know if it goes up or down, and you only want tocompensate for performance is when you move towards mobile.And from the T Mobile front, a branding perspective, you own the overall experience. So youyou are making sure that your employees are giving those customers exactly what they want.Obviously, you need the foot traffic to make that happen first and foremost. But, yeah, it's an.interesting divergence.At AT&T, about a month ago, Pascal Desroches announced he'll be retiring from a CFO position at the end of the year, and he will be replaced by Jennifer Beery. She's an AT&T alum,most recently CFO and COO at McAfee. Thoughts on Pascal stepping down?
Well, Pascal was the right man at the right time. He came in with John Stankey taking over as CEO,and he established a different tone than John Stevens had. Pascal really established faith and trust
and transparency back into the AT&T numbers. Under John Stevens, they changed how they reportedthe number almost every quarter. And it was so difficult to reconcile of what's actually going on in the
company and what the numbers said.
And as a result, none of the analysts trusted really AT&T's numbers. And a result, the stock traded ata discount of where it should trade. Pascal, who is a great person, really simplified how the company
was reporting, made it a lot more transparent, which also helped the company then to fully
demonstrate the success it has made over time, and how the company has focused on thefundamentals that has made AT&T an American icon. John Stankey refocused the company's strategyonconvergence. And Pascal told the story very successfully to Wall Street and investors.We did some work around investor relations. And one of the things that's also very interesting is
about half of AT&T's shareholders are retail shareholders. And what came out of that work that we did is that PASCAL restored the trust of small investors in the company. Investor Relations typically only deal with the massive investors, which is only half of the universe. And so, you know, Jennifer is coming in.She worked for John Stankey also before. When you go back when Jennifer worked for John the first
time around, John was very effusive about the qualifications of Jennifer. And I'm sure it hurt him when she stepped away. And what you need inthe relationship between the CEO and the CFO is a trusting relationship, you know, next to the COO. It's the most critical relationship you have.| always like to say the CEO is the brain of the company. The COO is the heart in Jeff McAlfresh. Hemoves the blood through the organization. The CFO is the lungs. They supply the oxygen that the
heart needs to push the blood through and to supply also the brain with oxygen.John gets back somebody he knows, he trusts, and based on what he said inthe past, admires and really gets along with.

All new hires WW have to be approved Alvind and he wants a genuine business case. He doesn't even trust his direct report to sloths to make a good hire.

Ignore the 25% loss in market value of the company. Look over here at this shiny bauble.

https://www.wsj.com/cio-journal/ibm-claims-new-era-of-quantum-advantage-92e3d5d4

Big Blue is racing to show that its quantum computing business can be profitable following a historic stock tumble

By: Belle Lin | July 30, 2026 6:00 am ET

International Business Machines said Thursday its research shows “quantum advantage”—a point at which quantum computers perform computations beyond conventional ones—and that these results can be rigorously validated.

The findings, which mark a step toward practical application of the nascent technology, were published in a trio of papers by IBM and its research partners. These include the University of Chicago, Japan’s RIKEN national research institute, and the quantum computing software firms Qedma, BlueQubit and Algorithmiq.

“We’re in the quantum advantage era,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research. “Scientists can trust it. Now it’s moving from people benchmarking the systems to using these for science to look at applications.”

The news comes as Big Blue races to show that its quantum computing business can be profitable.

Earlier this month, the company suffered its biggest share drop in history after it issued a profit warning citing a shift in customer spending from software to AI hardware and memory chips. IBM said the performance of its software and infrastructure business fell short of expectations in the second quarter.

Since then, IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna has offered an optimistic take on the company’s future, arguing quantum computing will begin to power its growth in a matter of years. The company’s first-mover advantage in quantum could boost its fortunes the way being a first mover in GPUs did for Nvidia, he recently told The Wall Street Journal.

IBM is going up against tech giants like Microsoft and Google, but also a host of startups in the quantum space.

While IBM is hardly the first to claim quantum advantage—the quantum computing company D-Wave made the claim last year, and Google said it showed “verifiable quantum advantage” in October—Gambetta said IBM’s latest papers are notable for demonstrating that its results are provable.

“They have methods that make sure that what is running on the quantum computer is giving you correct results,” he said.

In the Qedma and IBM paper, for instance, the companies said they showed how quantum computers can be used to explore the physics of materials, and that the results were confirmed using various methods, including on a Quantinuum quantum computer. “Think of this as a new physics that is being demonstrated on a quantum computer where classical methods fail,” Gambetta said.

Unlike traditional computers, where outputs can be validated by running the same problem on other computers, some quantum computer outputs push beyond the limits of what classical computers can verify.

That’s partly why IBM’s latest announcement is significant: The ability to replicate a quantum computer’s results shows that the systems are becoming more reliable and consistent, according to Heather West, an analyst focused on quantum computing at research firm International Data Corp.

Thursday’s news also helps put IBM further along the path to a fault-tolerant quantum computer, a milestone it has promised to achieve by 2029.

For businesses, though, the most significant takeaway is whether practical applications—from solving optimization problems to making breakthroughs in areas like materials science and medicine—will be possible with quantum computers.

Gambetta says IBM’s latest findings are a step in that direction.

“Having a trusted foundation allows you to start to do the application research, and as we inject more capable machines, it will allow us to scale those applications to ones that matter for business,” he said.

IDC’s West described IBM’s results as “another milestone in the way towards being able to use quantum systems to solve complex problems that are beyond the limits of classical compute,” and help solidify the company’s position as a strong player in the quantum market.

But reaching quantum advantage won’t be a singular moment—and certainly not in the way that the release of ChatGPT set off the artificial-intelligence bo-m, West said.

“We’re going to see future announcements that build on top of these,” she added. “Maybe in a month from now, or six months or a year, these particular findings will be overcome by findings that are a little bit more advanced, and that’s the way it should be.”

IBM said it encourages debate over quantum advantage, and Gambetta said he anticipates scientists will come up with newer classical methods and compare them against IBM’s findings. “I’m not going to say they’re bulletproof,” he said.

“What has changed is that we’re in a point where we can get trusted outcomes so that scientific debate can happen,” he added. “Over the next couple years, it will predominantly be a scientific debate, exactly like AI was debated in the universities using GPUs to look at neural networks.”

What is our future here? CLEC cannot sell new logos…Kinetic Business is just moving cups within the existing base. What is our future here? Hard to see it working out.

Looks like another team may be on the chopping block tomorrow. Just received the “Business Update” email from Director.

From the earnings release:
Software — revenues of $7.8 billion, up 5 percent:

• Hybrid Cloud (Red Hat) up 11 percent
• Automation up 4 percent, up 3 percent at constant currency
• Data up 19 percent, up 18 percent at constant currency
• Transaction Processing down 8 percent, down 9 percent at constant currency

$M
Hybrid Cloud 1,998
Automation 1,951
Data 1,782
Transaction Processing 2,030

Obviously Hybrid Cloud = Red Hat and Transaction Processing = all the old legacy mainframe SW like IMS, CICS, TPF, etc. But where do some of the other recent large SW acquisitions go? I assume Turbonomic and Apptio go under Automation? Datastax and Confluent go under Data? Where does Hashicorp go?

My sense is that pretty much ALL of the reported SW growth is coming from those 6 relatively recent acquisitions, not anything actually developed at IBM. But I'm curious which of those acquisitions are contributing most.

HCSC is now being managed by Manika and others with some ideology that they are bent on. It is not business. It is ideology. Maurice was an incrediblely smart business person back in the day, but he too has succumbed to this cr-p. Hcsc used to be the best of the Blues. No longer.

Can anyone in the know (VBG I guess?) comment on what Dan said about data centers and selling fiber today? Is this a viable business?

Dominik Asam discussed the company’s enterprise AI strategy, explaining why businesses are becoming more focused on AI cost:

There is now a recognition that AI tokens are not free. Every enterprise we talk to is grappling with the fact that token spending is going through the roof.

There is now a recognition that throwing tokens, in a probabilistic way, at every problem might not be the most efficient approach.

There is also a fear of vendor lock-in, as certain models are starting to increase their prices.

That is why SAP has chosen a completely different architecture. I checked this morning, and we now have 58 large language models integrated into our AI platform.

This allows us to take advantage of competition across models, both in terms of performance and cost. We can also route each task to the most appropriate model.

Sometimes you do not need the most expensive model.

Even more importantly, sometimes you do not need a model at all. You can solve the problem in a deterministic, algorithmic, and easily auditable way by simply crunching the numbers.

At SAP, we have the ability to leverage all of these approaches.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN8JPBNvs/

The strategy is: survive the quarter. Repeat.

As per WSJ, revenue is down and profit falls

Positive that we added new subscribers. I think they are not very profitable subscribers.

https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/verizon-revenue-ticks-down-profit-falls-on-joint-venture-costs-01726dbf

Bob is quoted as saying "I'll buy that for a dollar"!

we can build products, but can execs manage the business?

Chevron keeps average players. To compare Chevron to a real company almost made me fall off my chair. You are a minor league company at best ....comparing the business practices of blue chip companies. You are fortunate that Chevron has no spine to do what is necessary to right the ship. Management mistakes will catch up. You will wish you were somewhere else....

Look at Nike’s stock price over the past 50 years. There have been ups and downs, but nothing compares to the decline since 2020. The five-year downward trend is crazy.

It’s hard not to see this as the point where Nike went off the rails. Leadership, business strategy, and company culture all changed for the worse. I wonder how business analysts will explain what happened years from now.

A layoff is when good epmployees are let go due to bad business decisions. The employees were forced to support and try to make those decisions work, and are then fired. The executives who made those decisions stick around, say they hated to do it, and then do it again. Oh, but they also thank you for your efforts in supporting their cr-p ideas. No apologies, no accountability, just business. And repeat.

Pat Gelsinger says the chipmaker went off the rails ‘when it started to be run by business people’. (See: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/former-intel-ceo-says-chipmaker-185823655.html)

Same rule applies to EDA? A software maker derails the moment it is led by a CAE.

Talk about some spin. If AK and his cronies in the C-Suite forgo their bonuses for the rest of their undoubtedly extremely short tenures and take a significant pay cut, then that'll show accountability.
And doesn't AK attend the WEF in Davos every year? What advice did he receive from all those geniuses?
Somewhere out there one can hear the echoes of Ginni's hysterical laughter.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-ceo-arvind-krishna-facing-leadership-test-accountability-2026-7

By: Sarah E. Needleman | Jul 15, 2026, 4:56 AM CT

When IBM delivered bad news on Tuesday, CEO Arvind Krishna didn't look for someone else to blame. He owned it.

Krishna, who is widely credited with turning IBM around since becoming CEO in 2020, said in a letter to investors that clients had redirected quarterly capital spending toward scarce infrastructure. Management underestimated the scale of that shift, contributing to the company's second-quarter shortfall.

"These conditions require our teams to execute perfectly, and this quarter we faltered," Krishna wrote. "We did not adapt and move quickly enough, and numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected."

Though IBM's shares tanked in response, current and former tech executives told Business Insider that other leaders ought to emulate Krishna's candor. Owning a setback can strengthen a CEO's credibility longterm, they said, by showing that management understands the problem and is prepared to address it.

"He will develop more trust among his shareholders and employees and customers by being transparent," said former Cisco CEO John Chambers.

Leaders can gain more credibility from how they handle setbacks than from their successes, he added, though they need to move quickly. They should explain what happened, acknowledge what did not go as planned, and outline how they intend to get the business back on track.

"Rule 101 on setbacks: speed and be very visible," Chambers said.

Openness carries risks, though. Leaders facing a setback may not yet have complete answers, and acknowledging uncertainty can leave them vulnerable.

"You have to have the courage to say, 'Here's what I know. Here's what I don't know,' " Chambers said. "And that sometimes exposes you to critics."

Accepting responsibility

Gilad Bechar, CEO of Moburst, a digital marketing agency, described Krishna's remarks as "refreshing." He said CEOs often attribute disappointing results to outside forces such as tariffs or other macroeconomic headwinds.

"Usually you don't see Fortune 100 companies that are owning their situation like that," said Bechar. "They are very afraid of being this candid."

Krishna may have helped contain the damage by characterizing the shortfall as a forecasting error rather than as evidence that demand for the company's products and services had deteriorated, added Bechar. Showing that management understood what went wrong gives investors reason to believe the problem can be corrected, he said.

"If you're in control of the situation, you fully understand everything, and you just misjudge one specific element, it sounds like you're in a much better place," Bechar said.

Public-company leaders may be obligated to disclose material setbacks promptly, but accepting responsibility is a choice, said Jeffrey Puritt, the retired CEO of Telus International, a technology services provider now known as Telus Digital.

Krishna could have satisfied investors' need for information without explicitly owning up to management's mistake. By doing both, Puritt said, he demonstrated the accountability expected of someone in the top job.

"If you're the CEO, you get paid to take responsibility for the business's performance, win, lose, or draw," he said. Blaming others, Puritt added, would have been "a bit of a cop out."

'What you need to hear'

Krishna has spent more than three decades at IBM. He helped orchestrate the company's $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, which closed in 2019, and became CEO the following year. Since then, he's led an overhaul centered on hybrid cloud, software, and artificial intelligence.

Rod Adkins, a former IBM executive who also spent more than three decades at the company, said transparency is consistent with Krishna's leadership style.

"He has always been what I would call an above-the-board executive," Adkins said. "He will deliver what you need to hear versus what you want to hear."

That approach is especially important at a company like IBM, whose technology supports mission-critical operations, such as banking transactions and systems used by healthcare providers, airlines, retailers, and government agencies.

"Part of the trusted brand is being authentic with your communications," Adkins said. "Transparency, especially today, is a very important leadership attribute."

When are the first contractual payments due?

I’m hearing Q2 will be the turnaround quarter, word is the numbers coming through look fantastic, maybe that $8 target for the Warrants is in sight

Is business being affected at all?

UnitedHealth reported Q2 earnings this morning, and it’s worth looking beyond the headline. Digging in we see:

Highlights:

• Revenue: $111.6B (+14%)
• Adjusted EPS: $6.38, well above expectations
• Medical Loss Ratio: 86.7%, better than expected
• Raised full-year guidance
• Continued emphasis on improving the quality and profitability of the book of business, even if it means fewer members.

Official results:
https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/newsroom/2026/2026-07-16-uhg-reports-second-quarter-2026-results.html

The contrast with Centene couldn’t be much clearer. Both companies are dealing with membership pressure. The difference is that UnitedHealth is framing fewer members as a strategic choice in pursuit of a stronger operating model. Pricing, product decisions, analytics, AI, clinical execution, and disciplined growth all appear to be moving in the same direction.

Centene has spent the last year talking about Mission Simplify, reorganizations, buyouts, cost discipline, and a smaller organization. The stock has rebounded sharply from last year’s selloff, but that’s regained investor confidence… not necessarily proof the operating model has materially improved. It’s easy to look at the stock price this year vs. same time last year when it was in the dumpster.

The key takeaway and where the focus should be: Healthcare is no longer a game of who has the most members. It’s become who can generate the best outcomes with the members they have. With me so far?

Both companies will definitely end up serving fewer people. The difference is whether that’s the result of a stronger operating model… or simply a smaller organization. Both companies are getting smaller. UnitedHealth is treating it as a strategy. Centene is trying to convince investors it’s an opportunity.

And then there’s AI. UnitedHealth isn’t starting from scratch. While they’ve been embedding analytics and AI deeper into the operating model, Centene was very slow out of the blocks… and it has spent much of the last year restructuring, reducing costs, and trying to regain its footing. That’s a lot of ground to make up as AI becomes the next competitive battleground. Maybe they have the core competency internally, but I’ve never seen it, and you definitely can’t outsource it.

One of Centene’s guiding principles the past couple of years, “We do what’s right, not what’s easy.” The easy part was making the company smaller. The hard part is proving it became better.

The stage gets much bigger on the 27th. That’s where leadership has to show investors that Mission Simplify wasn’t just about reducing costs, but it’s resulted in a fundamentally stronger company. That’s what the market will be listening for. I’m not very optimistic they’ll pull it off.

"The company continues to evaluate the strategic positioning of its Medicaid portfolio, and recently reached an agreement with officials in DC to exit its Medicaid market. Boudreaux said to expect additional exits over the next 12 to 18 months...

Why BofA is hiring contractors in such huge numbers? Is it just usual business or something big is going to happen.

1. Startup: Bringing your business idea to life.

2. Growth: Consumers know about you and your revenue is increasing.

3. Maturity: More brand awareness and a strong presence in your target market.

4. Renewal or Decline: While every business wants to avoid a decline, it’s bound to happen to almost everyone. Reinvesting in your company can result in its renewal -- or decline can happen for a variety of reasons:
    

• Not pursuing opportunities to expand during the maturity stage
• Changes to the industry that require a change in strategy
• Competing businesses having better products or services
• Not reacting to technology updates or advances


https://www.thehartford.com/business-insurance/strategy/managing-growth/4-stages-business-growth

Sike! It’s absolutely personal with this MC. You can genuinely tell these are horrible human beings even outside of the workplace and get off on the cruelty they are inflicting on their workforce.

What do you think about those dashboards that will be launched soon and how do you think they will be utilised by the business?

Will they induce layoffs based on attendance?

Layoffs will continue to target citizens. Offshoring will continue to happen to India. Then those same people will be brought back in L1b in 4-5 years back to USA. Make tough choices once you open your own business and hire locally. Change needs to start at a grassroots level, vote for policies which are towards tougher immigration policies. 20 years down, US cities will be worse than Toronto. It is in our hands now.

In the US, we cannot see where we stand on SCORE so we have no idea how we are progressing towards our quota. We cannot see all of our backlog. Is this the same globally?

is there anymore US based technology at TransUnion. Nothing gets done. GCC doesn't do anything. We used to have support and now nothing. How is this business going to survive if nothing is moving.

Samsung Electronics America is relocating its U.S. headquarters from New Jersey to Texas. This move will impact approximately 1,000 employees, who must either move or face job loss. Lawmakers and business leaders express concern that the state's business climate is driving companies away. They cite high corporate taxes and regulatory burdens as contributing factors. This departure follows a trend of other major corporations leaving the state.

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

https://www.nj.com/business/2026/07/nj-just-lost-another-fortune-500-giant-lawmaker-warns-the-state-is-driving-business-away.html

Who else is enjoying this revamped Bp process as much as I am? It’s so clear and efficient and instills confidence in the direction this company is headed.

So, anyone think Oxy’s Oman business is at risk because Oman is getting closer to Iran.

Shell has first mover advantage by selling non operated Nakika asset. This simplifies the company significantly and creates capital and capacity where it’s needed. Now BP will have Talos as a partner. Talos going to learn the hard way how slow and complex BP really operates.
Why didn’t BP sale when they had a chance?

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/big-us-banks-explore-fiserv-network-deal-wsj-reports-2026-07-06/

I was hired during pandemic and never been to office. Whats the dress code here? Business Casual or Strictly business formal??