Science & Tech Quote by Roy Romer

IBM as a company becomes a cautionary prop here, a big-name stand-in for what happens when institutions mistake momentum for immunity. Roy Romer, speaking as a politician, isn’t really doing business history; he’s borrowing corporate drama to make a governance argument: even the giants can get blindsided, and complacency is a public risk.

The phrasing does a lot of quiet work. “You know” pulls the listener into a shared common sense, as if IBM’s near-fall is settled folklore rather than a contested story of strategy, regulation, labor, and technology. “Almost knocked out of the box” is punchy, almost cartoonish, the language of a prizefight. That metaphor matters: it frames disruption as sudden, external, and violent, not as the result of long, incremental choices. It also subtly excuses the incumbent. IBM wasn’t negligent; it was attacked by “other types” of software and manufacturing, a vague, rolling category that lets “innovation” feel like a force of nature.

In political context, that vagueness is useful. Romer can gesture at globalization, digitization, and shifting industrial bases without naming villains or policies. The line is aimed at audiences who need a reason to accept change - in education, workforce training, economic development - and to fear standing still. IBM’s near-knockout becomes an argument for reinvention with public backing: if even a titan can wobble, your state, your schools, your workers can’t afford to.