Peter E. Greulich's Blog for Short Thoughts, Insights and Witticisms

Helen Keller on the Value of a College Education

1/31/2022

"If you must pass through a desert to reach the smiling land of plenty, set forth bravely, and the hard journey across the waste places shall give strength to your feet. We derive benefit from the things we do not like and do nevertheless because they have to be done … and done—all the more conscientiously—because we do not like them. Necessity teaches patience and obedience."

Helen Keller, "An Apology for Going to College," 1905

Slide image of Radcliffe College with quote of Helen Keller.

This is an amazing article. Timeless in its wisdom. It should be considered as a mandatory read for all those executives who believe a college education unnecessary. I truly doubt that any of their struggles can compare with Helen Keller's. Every individual to achieve peace in life must learn the value and power of "delayed gratification."

May Helen Keller rest in peace and be thanked for these insights, and may you also learn patience and obedience. …

As Miss Keller wrote, they come from facing and overcoming "hard journeys."

Helen Keller: The Value of a College Education

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21st Century IBM Financial Information To Be Available in April

1/19/2022

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Thank you for all the inquiries about updating the 21st Century IBM information on my website. I know that everyone is anxious to get the latest data.

Slide image with an evaluation of Louis V. Gerstner, Samuel J. Palmisano, Virginia M. Rometty and Arvind Krishna.

The process I follow is not an analyst's quarter-to-quarter (or facetiously minute-to-minute) evaluation of the performance of the company. My data goes as far back as the founding of IBM in 1914 and my philosophy is that the best analysis of any company is an annual review which is always put into a historical perspective.

In the case of IBM, I put its annual performance within the context of decades and a century of truly great, good, and bad corner office leadership. This year, like last year with the acquisition of Red Hat, will be a complicated analysis because of the divestiture of Kyndryl.

I will get to work on that information as soon as IBM releases its official 2021 Annual Report.

In the meantime, enjoy what is on the site today: Selecting the image above or the menu below.

Cheers,

- Peter E.

The Twenty-First Century IBM Home Page

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Andrew Carnegie on Diversity in the Human Race

1/10/2022

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"Nothing should be done that would tend to reduce diversity of talents in our [human] race.

Image of the front cover of Andrew Carnegie's

Latest Book Review

"Everything should be done to increase it if possible; for it is through "variation" the progress of the [human] race has been achieved, and progress is the chief end of existence.

"This is what we are here for, as is proven by the fact that progress from the lower to the higher has prevailed from the time this earth cooled and life began to appear.

"This is our God-like mission: that every individual in his day and generation push this march upward, so that each succeeding generation may be better than the preceding."

Select the image above or the link below to read a review of "An American Four-in-Hand in Britain."

Andrew Carnegie's "An American Four-in-Hand in Britain."

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The Forgotten Men Who Built the Early American West

1/3/2022

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B. C. Forbes in "Men Who Are Making the West" rattles off the names of the following. It is a literal list of Whos Who of "Eastern" American Industrialists:

Image of the front cover of B. C. Forbes'

"The oil industry has its Rockefeller, the steel industry its Gary, the automobile industry its Ford, the photographic supply business its Eastman, the tobacco industry its Duke, the field of invention its Edison, . . .

" . . . the woolen industry its Wood, the lumber industry its Weyerhaeusers, the daily newspaper business its Hearst, the weekly field its Curtis [The Saturday Evening Post] . . .

" . . . the powder industry its duPonts, the smelting business its Guggenheims, the heavy chemical industry its Nichols, the mail-order business its Rosenwald, the corn products industry its Bedford, and the fire insurance business its Evans; . . .

" . . . the telephone had its Vail, the cash register had its Patterson, the chain store its Woolworth, railroading its Hill and Harriman, the electric industry its Coffin, coke its Frick, banking its Morgan, the sewing machine business its Singer."

I wonder how many of today's MBAs would recognize any of the ranchers, industrialists and bankers in this book by B. C. Forbes: "Men Who Are Making the West." I surely don't ask the question with any sense of superiority or intention of slighting a business education . . . because I only recognized one: Captain Robert Dollar.

Although B. C. Forbes is a little over-laudatory in his approach, he also presents solid facts that these men understood their responsibilities to their four stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders and their shared societies.

Read The Book Review of B. C. Forbes' "Men Who Are Making the West"

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Helen Keller on the Value of a College Education

21st Century IBM Financial Information To Be Available in April

Andrew Carnegie on Diversity in the Human Race

The Forgotten Men Who Built the Early American West

Peter E. Greulich

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