IBM

IBM, born in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, was the original tech titan, long before Silicon Valley thought it was cool. Under the legendary Thomas Watson Sr., the company perfected the art of corporate conformity, with employees donning the infamous dark suits that mirrored the company’s rigid approach to innovation. IBM’s dominance in mainframe computers earned it a front-row seat to the rise of the digital age, though it famously fumbled the PC revolution, leaving Microsoft and Apple to reap the rewards. The company’s pivot to services under Lou Gerstner in the 1990s was hailed as a masterstroke, but more recent years have been less kind. The Watson AI project, once heralded as the future, has struggled to deliver on its grand promises, leaving IBM to grapple with its place in a tech landscape it once ruled. The legacy? A cautionary tale of a giant that taught the world to think but forgot how to adapt.