IBM’s Indian American CEO Arvind Krishna has told employees questioning the company’s ties to the Israeli military that its foreign business wouldn’t be shaped by IBM’s own values or humanitarian guidelines.
When working for governments, IBM believes the customer is always right, Krishna said during a livestreamed video Q&A session on June 6,
The Intercept reported citing records of the presentation reviewed by it.
“We try to operate with the principles that are encouraged by the governments of the countries we are in. We are a US headquarter company. So, what does the US federal government want to do on international relations? That helps guide a lot of what we do,” he was quoted as saying.
READ: Indians in green card line hail Arvind Krishna’s appointment as IBM CEO (January 31, 2020)
“We operate in many countries. We operate in Israel, but we also operate in Saudi Arabia. What do those countries want us to do? And what is it they consider to be correct behavior?” Krishna added as cited by the Intercept.
Krishna continued by claiming IBM would not help build weapons — not because doing so is morally wrong, but because the company doesn’t have a system of judging right from wrong. “We will not work on offensive weapons programs,” Krishna explained. “Why? I am not taking any kind of moral or ethical judgment. I think that should be on each country who does those. The reason we don’t is, we do not have the internal guardrails to decide whether the technology applies in a good way or unethical way for offensive weapons.”
The ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza has triggered tense, at times hostile, reckonings across American tech companies including IBM over their role in the killing, according to the left-wing nonprofit news organization. For IBM workers worried about where the company draws the line, Krishna’s response has sparked only greater consternation, the Intercept suggested.
IBM, according to The Intercept did not respond to its request for comment.
The Intercept cited some IBM employees who spoke to it on the condition of anonymity as saying they were unnerved or upset by their CEO’s remarks, including one who described them as “predictably shameful.”
This unnamed person was quoted as saying that while some were glad Krishna had even broached the topic of IBM and Israel, “the responses I heard in one-on-one discussions were overwhelmingly dissatisfied or outraged.”
Another IBM worker, according to the news site, characterized Krishna’s comments as an “excuse for him to hide behind the US government’s choices in a business sense,” adding that “with the track record that IBM has with taking part in genocidal government projects, it certainly doesn’t help his case in any valuable moral way whatsoever.”
The company’s stance from its closed-doors staff discussion is markedly different than its public claims, The Intercept suggested.
“Like its major rivals, IBM says its business practices are constrained by various human rights commitments, principles that in theory ask the company to avoid harm in the pursuit of profit. When operating in a foreign country, such commitments ostensibly prevent a company like IBM from simply asking ‘What do those countries want us to do?’” as Krishna put it, according to The Intercept.