Life & Wisdom Quote by Craig Bruce

Progress, in Craig Bruce's telling, is not a triumphant parade; it's a bulldozer that still has to idle at the gate while the security guards finish their coffee. The line lands because it flatters inevitability while smuggling in an insult: even the corporate behemoth that once defined "the future" can only delay it. The punchline is the time scale. "For more than a decade" is both an admission and an accusation, a wry nod to how innovation actually moves in the real world - slowly, bureaucratically, and with expensive detours.

IBM functions here less as a company than as a symbol of institutional gravity: procurement cycles, legacy systems, risk-aversion, committees that confuse caution with wisdom. The quote's specific intent is to puncture the mythology that big incumbents are permanent gatekeepers. Bruce isn't claiming that the giants are powerless; he's saying their power is temporal. They can stall standards, litigate, buy competitors, set the pace of adoption - but only for so long before the underlying economics and user desire route around them.

The subtext is almost affectionate cynicism: the author respects IBM's ability to resist change, then undercuts it with a grin. It's also a warning to startups and true believers who think "disruption" happens on keynote schedules. If even IBM can't block progress indefinitely, it can still make you wait ten years. That's the joke with teeth: history doesn't stop, but it can be delayed long enough to exhaust the impatient and reward the stubborn.