IBM restructuring (1993)
IBM, once dominant in mainframes, lost $8 billion in 1993. New CEO Lou Gerstner cut 60,000 jobs—about 12% of the workforce—and shifted the company toward software and services. The cuts were painful but reversible; IBM survived and became a services leader.
Thousands lost jobs, but IBM avoided bankruptcy and returned to profitability by 1995.
IBM's transformation defined how legacy tech companies could pivot to new business models, though at high human cost.
Like IBM, ServiceNow is a mature software company responding to a technological shift (AI) by cutting jobs while investing in new capabilities. The parallel shows such cuts can lead to long-term survival, but also that the human toll is real.
