From the beginning, IBM had a concept of itself as an institution, not just a technology company.

I read this quote by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in “1100100 and counting,” an article in The Economist about IBM’s success.

Kanter wrote SuperCorps, a book about successful companies.

I really love this quote because it reflects exactly what I love about the intersection of culture, technology, and business. How a company views themselves, their own identity and their own purpose, has RADICAL effects on how they build technology and build relationships with customers to sell the technology.

Kanter’s quote is essentially saying that culture matters - beliefs matter - and they matter because they determine your growth strategy and they contribute to how you innovate.

This is not to say that institutions are can be incredibly un-innovative and ingrained in irrelevant practices that the market no longer supports, but the larger point here is that longevity is part of IBM’s culture and by seeing itself as an institution it focused its resources on building out its legacy by staying relevant to the technology market.

The question now is which of the technology companies today will become institutions 100 years from now?