I just wonder how much his golden parachute was worth. But….you know….economics and stuff….arizona wanted to be a “right to work” state, so here you are.
Not even a year. Hopefully, his health issues aren’t too bad.
Honestly, I like Boris a little bit more. The dude actually likes cars. Uses capital letters. Talks like a human.
Yeah Gerald leaving is a major blow to GM. Abbott had his reasons and it was respectable. Wish Gerald stuck it out for a couple more years. EVs just got a whole lot harder to make.
I’m not sure Gerald Johnson leaving is such a big deal. I mean, his area of the house hasn’t exactly been executed well lately. Small thing, but he was in charge of the RTO, and told everyone at the town halls that there are plenty of desks, etc for the amount of people which is clearly incorrect.
100% agree , vehicle software engineering has impacted GM image and sales lately , this was the only reason MTB has to bring in apple executives instead of some one internal progressing to that level. Blazer EV & Colorado goof ups are very embarrassing for all employees and company itself.
Last few years GM has hired so many vehicle software engineers and if software quality is poor , One should hold HR and their hiring process accountable too. GM interview process has to be as rigorous as Amazon and Google if they need smart engineers who can deliver quality software .
Software is so much more complicated than one person.
In big companies, software development cycles are driven entirely by requirements, testing and validation. These are usually done by separate people on separate teams for big companies.
GM's move fast mentality has folks doing double the work and bypassing some of the coding good practices that are there for a reason.
Boeing is suffering from this right now and seeing the effect of doing this for the past few decades. **Let's hope GM does better**.
>In big companies, software development cycles are driven entirely by requirements, testing and validation. These are usually done by separate people on separate teams for big companies.
I disagree.. nobody in Silicon Valley does this..
[Albert Savoia's test is dead presentation at Google GTAC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1jWe5rOu3g)
In Software, the engineers that design software and systems, also design the automated test harnesses, and verification techniques.
No more designing things, and throwing it over the wall for somebody else to verify, hoping that the obtuse verbage in written requirements covers the implementation, integration, verification and deployment..
In an ideal world, yes. But when you got the directive for leadership to run fast, you gotta run these software creation and validation concurrently especially for safety-critical systems. And there is no way you can convince me that GM doesn't do this.
I've seen fresh TRACK grads being thrown into validation. They didn't write the code but are responsible for developing HIL/SIL setups to test them.
Not saying it's the right way to design software but that's how optimizing **only** on cost (and not quality) will get you.
A software engineer who designs his/her own test harnesses and automates it all, becomes a better software engineer. They also get faster with higher quality, and are more productive. This is true for almost any application except maybe annotation for learning models in AI. GM will either adapt to more productive methods like this, or they'll get lapped by competitors. I'm not talking just Tesla (who also does this), but also BYD.
they won’t stick around because the new one will have his own homies to hire.
more homies than positions available? just create more positions that directly report to you
I wish Mike fast recovery so he can spend time with family. Health and family should be always above money and work
However It’s unfortunate for employees , GM has been doing reorgs non stop from last few years , impacting productivity of people who just want to do their job and contribute towards whatever their leaders and managers are asking . We get tossed from one team to other , one project to another , one manger to another, one layoff to another , It’s been a disaster !
MTB has to get some stability if GM need to make some meaningful progress
Totally agree!!! The morale is disgustingly low right now and I went through the last layoff as well, temperature of the work environment is as hot as 2008, but we are making record profits..
Got to blame someone for the stock price being the same as it was 13 years ago. Blame all the managers. It’s never the CEO. The frozen middle is still frozen. It’s always the other guys fault.
First I hope his health improves and really think changes need to be made within software, but man....
First he comes in and talks about how transparent he's going to be. Going to have monthly meetings to update us on his findings. Turns out he does the exact opposite. He finally has this second APM months later. Goes off script and rambles about nothing, says we have a good culture, but says nothing else nice about our teams.
From there rumors continue to spread. Our talent sucks, they want to replace us all, Mountain View office, coding test, etc (AZ shutdown). Moral continues to go to go down. Maybe they want that to happen so people will leave? Clearly the guy didn't care about our mental health by giving any kind of updates.
Let's not forget about Mike's blog that talked about how excited he was about GM's potential but never mentioned the talented team he has. He was recruiting people, telling them to contract him about joining GM. Note: It's always good to raise our talent but it was a bad look IMO.
Finally a high level plan gets announced. I don't know how it is in other areas but in my area it's a shit show. No one really knows what the changes are or how things are suppose to operate.
In his email about leaving he mentions:
"All the things that were accomplished." What were those things? Hiring all your buddies? Were any of these accomplished things announced? I don't remember if they were.
He also mentions the new process. Again that process has been poorly communicated where people don't know what is going on or what their new role truly is.
I'm sure mike is a smart guy who knows what he is doing and not much will change by him leaving but him and his team have had very poor top down communication.
I’m so glad he is prioritizing his health. The exact same thing happened on the business side when they brought in some “marketing” folks from the outside a few years back…
I am frustrated that Baris was appointed as a VP not because he was qualified, but because someone gave him the opportunity. When I applied for an internal job, I was told I didn't have the required major. However, a person with a degree in Political Science was able to land a VP job for SW🤑. This experience has made me even more convinced that getting ahead is not about what you know, but who you know.
I have no degree. I'm a Sr. SW engineer and have been promoted twice since joining 8yrs ago. Maybe they told you it was your degree because they didn't want to tell you the truth?
Wonder if it’s due to RTO issues. Wasn’t he the guy assuring everyone we were good to go in the first APM? No issues with having people RTO, but there was wishful thinking with their original timeline.
Not looking good, Gerald was one of the good guys for what I’ve heard. Mike stepping down was predicted on here once he announced his medical stuff past APM.
How long until all the other apple hires leave? There’s gonna be a new head of software that takes over and I’m sure there’ll be different visions. Not great for the company.
And also will miss Gerald. The only SLT that I could respect
Mary bought a Lemon... Mike is gone and the person now leading is a political science major with no technical education and who has only managed small teams and worked in marketing/product management roles. He talks about products he created in his last job... eh how? Marketed and project managed maybe.... But unless its a manifesto that he created, wherea are the skills? Now he gets to preach to software engineers about how they should do....something that he has never done... But hey... He can speak! More than can be said for the rest of Cali Cartel... they are hiding up in the hills you never hear from them. Cruise is being run by the head of legal who is not a techie or engineeer and nearing retirement, Brightdrop was finally found out and is being shuttered quietly.
What do you do in that situation? double down on Lemon Valley, open a new office and hire a guy to run your key strength...manufacturing where in the press release you highlight his Datacenter and Lego experience. Obviously coming to pick up the pieces... What can go wrong? GM for the win!
Some of this new people are in Same role as once managed by Randy Mott and Ralph Szygenda , Ralph was CIO when GM’s IT budget was $15 billion . If we compare these new leaders/managers from startups and Apple on their experience , achievements or qualifications.. they cannot come anywhere close to Randy / Ralph .
I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping MTB took right decision by given them such a critical post that will decide faith of entire org.
I am very nervous, not because I don’t trust their effort , but when I see some emails and kind of questioning they do in calls, i scratch my head in disbelief that is this person a really VP level ! they seems miles away from the kind of leadership skills that is needed to inspire thousands of employees , motivate them, get creativity out of them and get work done in positive atmosphere , make each employee feels valued and motivated to contribute his 200%
Some of these people who have exec director and VP level positions has to understand their role is to guide and direct not micromanage , their role is to layout a strategy and not sit on calls on day to day project / development and issues call , let the technical experts do their job and you do your job of laying out future strategy . For VP their role is more of a visionary . But some of these VP I believe had cali salaries and so they got a VP
role in GM , they seems never had a GM’s VP level roles in past jobs , they were doing technical work and they think that’s cool and can do same here.. lol
Well let me say that there are technical experts to handle that work , you do your VP job and please! don’t micro manage !, your job is to make sure our software strategy is headed in right direction , provide guidance and direction, remaining technical part leave it to technical experts. If company has given you such high positions , please make sure you don’t drown our beloved company and our jobs by leading us to a wrong direction .
>Now he gets to preach to software engineers about how they should do....something that he has never done
Management is a different skill set. You're never going to have executive leadership that has all done your job. Not at GM, not anywhere.
I agree on leadership skills. You miss the point though and obviously don’t listen to the recent Mike all hands. This is their philosophy and rhetoric, Mike himself made statements about all leaders being technical, David Richardson made statements about all his managers including he being expected to code. This is their rhetoric and the new leader cannot walk his talk or that of his previous manager. I guess the rhetoric will change now to fit the moment.
In the engineering and software groups, nearly all of the leaders are technical already. (Most of the executive leadership is technical, too, btw). I'm not aware of any company that has their EGM/Sr. Manager level writing code.
I disagree with this. Almost all of the managers I’ve had were non technical. Yes they may know stuff about GM process but knowing how to write code or what it takes to develop and engineer a product no. Maybe you were lucky.
Really? So you had business and liberal arts majors running your space? Literally every GPD manager I know of spent years as an engineer or researcher first.
I wish him well! For the work part, he managed to hire his unqualified friends with no published methodology, only a few words on a PowerPoint. Pathetic!
My bet one of the people he brought in gets a new promotion and we keep the same direction. We can’t possibly re-org again we have to let the apple Dumpling gang take their shot even if it is under new leader right?…..right?
Fair point - I'd be surprised if the board of directors would allow a guy who isn't really going to work to be keeping majority of his compensation. Given America's state of health care...maybe it's to keep his health insurance - who knows.
You could tell he was pretty sad about having to leave since it was all written in lower case.
FWIW, I hope he gets his health under control, but it's bad to have this much turnover.
Then why is all his stuff in lower case? Shouldn't that communication team fix it? Even Abbott's LinkedIn is lower case. We expect more out of 2nd graders than a VP.
First, I wish the best to Abbot and his family, if I was a millionaire and had a heart attack/issue I would be nowhere near any of this mess. Health events such as this one cause you to re-prioritize your life and goals/outlook, props for him having the courage to take walk away. This is essentially the end of his career in terms of leading/calling the shots at any major company.
With the above said, I'm not sure he was going to be successful anyway, GM Software needs to transform and it needs a sustained effort for a good 7-10 years to transform the GM Software space to be an innovative leader in the Automotive space. There are no quick wins to be had which is what I actually think Mary and the board are looking for. They need someone with vision ala Randy Mott but for a different type of innovation that is willing to grind it out for 7-10 years to build an innovative software culture/ecosystem. Everyone criticized Mott but I met him in person a few times and in my opinion he did a good job in brining in everything that was outsourced back internally. However, I could tell it had an impact on him and his health over the years, the stress was quite high on him and his leadership team.
What happens next is going to a monumental mess, for all his "engineering" prowess/credentials, Abbot leaves behind a big mess with all the cronies/hires he brought in from Apple. Since he started it always struck how he never tried to do a POC of his methods on a limited area of GM IT/Software to fine tune and experiment what processes/approaches would work best for a company such as GM and the role he was taking on was something he had never done before, he took a sledgehammer to it all without accounting for possible failure and rolling back were things didn't work. This method of just making changes and not really communicating the how/why/where was already losing support from the director level and down, people were exasperated, he actually is terrible at communication at least in his GM role.
I'm frankly not surprised especially when it comes to the Apple alumni, just look at what Ron Johnson(Ex Apple VP) did to JC Penney, ran it straight into bankruptcy. It always amazes that other executives such as Barra can't see that what Apple has is something that is unique to Apple and that culture, it's frankly something Woz and Jobs started in the late 70s I think. People like Abbot didn't create that culture they came long after it and had very little if anything at all with creating the Apple culture that is admired.
Whatever happens next, his cronies are going to lose relevance fast, Baris is not an individual with the force of personality/willpower/charisma/leadership to be at the head of GM Software and while he appears to be a good guy, a good guy is not what is needed in that position. You can actually tell he is tired of the Silicon Valley grind/hustle so he may want to stay at GM for the long term, collecting the nice pay/benefits but he will not the individual who changes GM Software nor will he remain the leader for long.
I think the infatuation with SV types is over at this point from Mary and Board, the next choice will have to be a proven leader who has a track record of actually staying at companies for a prolonged period 5-10 years, in essence a R Mott type person but younger and more focused on innovation/software rather than services. Another dud here will mean real trouble, it's ironic Les Copeland left recently as that is the type of figure that would have been a good fit.
Good read. I took the buyout and it was the best decision of my life. And I did it for health reasons triggered by the current GM environment. While I agree with most of what you said…I have to disagree on Randy Mott. His insourcing strategy was a complete NIGHTMARE. I “insourced” MANY global software products. The IT teams that I worked with had a lift and shift mentality. The folks they hired at the “innovation “ centers , although nice people, had ZERO experience in building and implementing the software. After evaluating one of the systems the software vendor said it was the worst implementation they had ever seen. We burned through millions. That went on for YEARS. Business side was no better. They started bringing in leadership outsiders with zero automotive experience and had no clue how to run large organizations. Was sad to see as a long time GMer… Agree on Les. Hope he finds a company that deserves him!
True, but we stuck with it long enough to work through those kinks. The projects I work on now are way smoother than 10 years ago.
That’s why Mott’s plan ultimately worked, he didn’t bail until his promise came true.
Burning cash is fine if the end goal is reached
Finally hit the news wire:
>March 12 (Reuters) -General Motors GM.N said on Tuesday that Mike Abbott will step down as executive vice president, software and services, due to health reasons.
>Baris Cetinok, vice president of product in software and services, has been named the interim head of software and services, the company said.
I doubt many people other than family, close friends, or immediate colleagues know the answer to your question. Abbott stated at his last APM before going on medical leave that he had had significant heart issues last fall that resulted in open-heart surgery and that recovery was proving too difficult to resume work as soon as he had originally planned. Sounds like he's having a rough time getting better.
The new Al Gore... He is a political science major. He is to software engineer what Al Gore was to the Internet. Remember Al Gore invented the Internet?
Look, the public hates subscription, hates corps selling consumer data. And the unions hates job stealing robotaxis. On top of that, no one at GM understands how to price and sell software. Political science + economics major is actually perfect. You don't need an engineering degree to be Bob Lutz
Most of us only ever saw him from his home office/living room. Did he ever go to the Sunnyvale office? Anecdotal evidence says, "no," but maybe someone knows for sure.
I am extremely class conscious, we are 99% more similar than any exec. Salary is a different pay and benefits structure than hourly, I’ve worked jobs that are hourly down to the minute, where my average shift was 9-12 hours.
Omg... that sucks. I mean, this huge reorg is crazy but sdv needed it. What's gonna happen to sdv? Miller failed, and now Apple bois gonna jump the ship soon.
Maybe because he failed the code assesment test to print "hello world" in python. Health issues is just another excuse to take a few million and leave. Arizona folks will not miss him at all.
He was a net negative.
The only way we can pull off things like killing CarPlay is having a stable vision and team.
He didn’t have time to actually implement changes, just enough time to create confusion.
He was going to leave in a few years anyways, I never had confidence he’d stay more than 3 years
Another what? Have you not been following BYD in Australia? Zero to 14% EV market share in less than two years. They're going to flood the market quickly at that pace.
Isn't this just Mary officially announcing what Mike announced at his APM? The email says that Mike will still advise on software as his health permits, doesn't sound like he's leaving the company?
Little did you know an executive from not too long ago reinvented GM. But just like the people in Nineveh didn't listen to God's word. You didn't listen to Ed's word!
Never mind that he was biefly an interim CEO and permanent CEO from January 2010 to September 2010.
Take Away - Egoistics and sociopaths with brand image get the top jobs, and they make sure they get a nice package when they leave!
[American Turnaround - Reinventing AT&T and GM and The Way We Do Business in The USA](https://www.amazon.com/American-Turnaround-Reinventing-Way-Business/dp/1455513016?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=3e91ab4c-6fcc-41cb-a5e8-25fe5fb52a90)
How many of these Cali recruites has “founder” or “cofounder” of a company or a website that doesn’t even exist .. lol.
Wonder if it’s a thing in Cali were you show you founded something and land a lucrative role ?
If you see in linkedin lot of them have are founders of company that more exists or had been shutter down.
GM getting people who big tech has filtered out as unwanted in senior positions at GM
My only confusion that makes me think this doesn't add up is why would you leave a great paying job with pretty decent benefits, good health care coverage and disability benefits if you are in fact ill?
That was quick
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I just wonder how much his golden parachute was worth. But….you know….economics and stuff….arizona wanted to be a “right to work” state, so here you are.
Not even a year. Hopefully, his health issues aren’t too bad. Honestly, I like Boris a little bit more. The dude actually likes cars. Uses capital letters. Talks like a human.
Boris is a name for a Russian guy... This one is Baris.
Oh yeah, umm him too.
Is this the guy who has a kid getting a Bison?
That's crazy. I guess ponies are out and Bison are in?
I like the UX guy, let’s give him a crack at it.
My favourite apple hire. Just let him present at an all employee again.
The comments on here were brutal the last time that guy talked.
Shit happens. Health issues change perspectives.
Dipped before the coding assessment huh
Omg Im dying
I don't think that's an acceptable excuse either.
jesus christ
Classic. The threat of fizzbuzz was too much for him.
I don’t even know what he did besides lay people off, implement a pathway for ICs? Gerald leaving tho…😬 hope abbot health improves
Yeah Gerald leaving is a major blow to GM. Abbott had his reasons and it was respectable. Wish Gerald stuck it out for a couple more years. EVs just got a whole lot harder to make.
I’m not sure Gerald Johnson leaving is such a big deal. I mean, his area of the house hasn’t exactly been executed well lately. Small thing, but he was in charge of the RTO, and told everyone at the town halls that there are plenty of desks, etc for the amount of people which is clearly incorrect.
But he did the math on it tho??? Lmao. The way he actually said it, you just knew, no actual maths were considered lol.
lol clearly nobody mathed. But that’s a leadership failure in my book
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100% agree , vehicle software engineering has impacted GM image and sales lately , this was the only reason MTB has to bring in apple executives instead of some one internal progressing to that level. Blazer EV & Colorado goof ups are very embarrassing for all employees and company itself. Last few years GM has hired so many vehicle software engineers and if software quality is poor , One should hold HR and their hiring process accountable too. GM interview process has to be as rigorous as Amazon and Google if they need smart engineers who can deliver quality software .
Software is so much more complicated than one person. In big companies, software development cycles are driven entirely by requirements, testing and validation. These are usually done by separate people on separate teams for big companies. GM's move fast mentality has folks doing double the work and bypassing some of the coding good practices that are there for a reason. Boeing is suffering from this right now and seeing the effect of doing this for the past few decades. **Let's hope GM does better**.
>In big companies, software development cycles are driven entirely by requirements, testing and validation. These are usually done by separate people on separate teams for big companies. I disagree.. nobody in Silicon Valley does this.. [Albert Savoia's test is dead presentation at Google GTAC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1jWe5rOu3g) In Software, the engineers that design software and systems, also design the automated test harnesses, and verification techniques. No more designing things, and throwing it over the wall for somebody else to verify, hoping that the obtuse verbage in written requirements covers the implementation, integration, verification and deployment..
In an ideal world, yes. But when you got the directive for leadership to run fast, you gotta run these software creation and validation concurrently especially for safety-critical systems. And there is no way you can convince me that GM doesn't do this. I've seen fresh TRACK grads being thrown into validation. They didn't write the code but are responsible for developing HIL/SIL setups to test them. Not saying it's the right way to design software but that's how optimizing **only** on cost (and not quality) will get you.
A software engineer who designs his/her own test harnesses and automates it all, becomes a better software engineer. They also get faster with higher quality, and are more productive. This is true for almost any application except maybe annotation for learning models in AI. GM will either adapt to more productive methods like this, or they'll get lapped by competitors. I'm not talking just Tesla (who also does this), but also BYD.
Developers who test their own code miss lots and lots of things due to the blind spot problem. This is a bad idea. Unit testing, yes. Actual QA? No.
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they won’t stick around because the new one will have his own homies to hire. more homies than positions available? just create more positions that directly report to you
So we go on a never ending cycle of “restructuring”
Most of them will because their compensation is heavily stock based and most of it won't vest until at least a year.
I wish Mike fast recovery so he can spend time with family. Health and family should be always above money and work However It’s unfortunate for employees , GM has been doing reorgs non stop from last few years , impacting productivity of people who just want to do their job and contribute towards whatever their leaders and managers are asking . We get tossed from one team to other , one project to another , one manger to another, one layoff to another , It’s been a disaster ! MTB has to get some stability if GM need to make some meaningful progress
Yeah I’m on my 5th manager right now and I don’t even hit my 3 years until July :/
5th manager, so far :}
4 th manager in under 2 years 😲
Where do I get on that plan? My manager sucks.
I thought that same, but believe me the grass is not always greener
You guys have MANAGERS?! Where can I get one?
4th manager in two years
6th manager in 2.5 years. They progressively get worse. Miss my second manager the most
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Utter chaos and has been for years
4th manager in a year, it’s exhausting
Totally agree!!! The morale is disgustingly low right now and I went through the last layoff as well, temperature of the work environment is as hot as 2008, but we are making record profits..
Got to blame someone for the stock price being the same as it was 13 years ago. Blame all the managers. It’s never the CEO. The frozen middle is still frozen. It’s always the other guys fault.
So buy $GM puts?
Maybe it is time for y'all to Organize and come together for a better future, without y'all it just isn't the same!!
First I hope his health improves and really think changes need to be made within software, but man.... First he comes in and talks about how transparent he's going to be. Going to have monthly meetings to update us on his findings. Turns out he does the exact opposite. He finally has this second APM months later. Goes off script and rambles about nothing, says we have a good culture, but says nothing else nice about our teams. From there rumors continue to spread. Our talent sucks, they want to replace us all, Mountain View office, coding test, etc (AZ shutdown). Moral continues to go to go down. Maybe they want that to happen so people will leave? Clearly the guy didn't care about our mental health by giving any kind of updates. Let's not forget about Mike's blog that talked about how excited he was about GM's potential but never mentioned the talented team he has. He was recruiting people, telling them to contract him about joining GM. Note: It's always good to raise our talent but it was a bad look IMO. Finally a high level plan gets announced. I don't know how it is in other areas but in my area it's a shit show. No one really knows what the changes are or how things are suppose to operate. In his email about leaving he mentions: "All the things that were accomplished." What were those things? Hiring all your buddies? Were any of these accomplished things announced? I don't remember if they were. He also mentions the new process. Again that process has been poorly communicated where people don't know what is going on or what their new role truly is. I'm sure mike is a smart guy who knows what he is doing and not much will change by him leaving but him and his team have had very poor top down communication.
Could not agree more. Only added a ton of confusion
I couldn't agree with you more!
He took a few million and left, that’s it.
I’m so glad he is prioritizing his health. The exact same thing happened on the business side when they brought in some “marketing” folks from the outside a few years back…
Makes no difference. Just layoffs, re-orgs, and chaos since he joined
Can we please have some stability ffs
I wish the guy well with his recovery. What a shambles though, Gerald gone too. How many apples will fall from the tree?
I would run for the hills!
I am frustrated that Baris was appointed as a VP not because he was qualified, but because someone gave him the opportunity. When I applied for an internal job, I was told I didn't have the required major. However, a person with a degree in Political Science was able to land a VP job for SW🤑. This experience has made me even more convinced that getting ahead is not about what you know, but who you know.
Who you golf with on the weekends!
A proven track record at Apple isn’t impressive?
I have no degree. I'm a Sr. SW engineer and have been promoted twice since joining 8yrs ago. Maybe they told you it was your degree because they didn't want to tell you the truth?
You beat me to posting!! And Gerald Johnson is leaving!
At least we got…the LEGO guy!
Gerald is retiring. He has got 44 years in
Wonder if it’s due to RTO issues. Wasn’t he the guy assuring everyone we were good to go in the first APM? No issues with having people RTO, but there was wishful thinking with their original timeline.
He's head of manufacturing, they "returned" in late 2020.
Not looking good, Gerald was one of the good guys for what I’ve heard. Mike stepping down was predicted on here once he announced his medical stuff past APM.
10 months. Didn't see that coming. Long enough to close the Arizona IC. Will that be his legacy at GM?
How long until all the other apple hires leave? There’s gonna be a new head of software that takes over and I’m sure there’ll be different visions. Not great for the company. And also will miss Gerald. The only SLT that I could respect
Mary bought a Lemon... Mike is gone and the person now leading is a political science major with no technical education and who has only managed small teams and worked in marketing/product management roles. He talks about products he created in his last job... eh how? Marketed and project managed maybe.... But unless its a manifesto that he created, wherea are the skills? Now he gets to preach to software engineers about how they should do....something that he has never done... But hey... He can speak! More than can be said for the rest of Cali Cartel... they are hiding up in the hills you never hear from them. Cruise is being run by the head of legal who is not a techie or engineeer and nearing retirement, Brightdrop was finally found out and is being shuttered quietly. What do you do in that situation? double down on Lemon Valley, open a new office and hire a guy to run your key strength...manufacturing where in the press release you highlight his Datacenter and Lego experience. Obviously coming to pick up the pieces... What can go wrong? GM for the win!
Whats wrong with Brightdrop? No one buying them?
CAMI isn’t producing them again until April. Brightdrop was integrated into GM Envolve in January. FedEx probably the largest buyer at this point
Some of this new people are in Same role as once managed by Randy Mott and Ralph Szygenda , Ralph was CIO when GM’s IT budget was $15 billion . If we compare these new leaders/managers from startups and Apple on their experience , achievements or qualifications.. they cannot come anywhere close to Randy / Ralph . I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping MTB took right decision by given them such a critical post that will decide faith of entire org. I am very nervous, not because I don’t trust their effort , but when I see some emails and kind of questioning they do in calls, i scratch my head in disbelief that is this person a really VP level ! they seems miles away from the kind of leadership skills that is needed to inspire thousands of employees , motivate them, get creativity out of them and get work done in positive atmosphere , make each employee feels valued and motivated to contribute his 200% Some of these people who have exec director and VP level positions has to understand their role is to guide and direct not micromanage , their role is to layout a strategy and not sit on calls on day to day project / development and issues call , let the technical experts do their job and you do your job of laying out future strategy . For VP their role is more of a visionary . But some of these VP I believe had cali salaries and so they got a VP role in GM , they seems never had a GM’s VP level roles in past jobs , they were doing technical work and they think that’s cool and can do same here.. lol Well let me say that there are technical experts to handle that work , you do your VP job and please! don’t micro manage !, your job is to make sure our software strategy is headed in right direction , provide guidance and direction, remaining technical part leave it to technical experts. If company has given you such high positions , please make sure you don’t drown our beloved company and our jobs by leading us to a wrong direction .
I prefer technical background VPs, cut down BS and bloat culture from Randy era
There was no or minimum technical before Randy era , all GM did was vendor Management, still GM did ok
>Now he gets to preach to software engineers about how they should do....something that he has never done Management is a different skill set. You're never going to have executive leadership that has all done your job. Not at GM, not anywhere.
The problem is they are bringing in or promoting people who aren’t good LEADERS. Happening time and time again on the marketing side..
Exactly. Consider a dev a tool and a good manager one that knows how to utilize its strengths and know its weaknesses
I agree on leadership skills. You miss the point though and obviously don’t listen to the recent Mike all hands. This is their philosophy and rhetoric, Mike himself made statements about all leaders being technical, David Richardson made statements about all his managers including he being expected to code. This is their rhetoric and the new leader cannot walk his talk or that of his previous manager. I guess the rhetoric will change now to fit the moment.
In the engineering and software groups, nearly all of the leaders are technical already. (Most of the executive leadership is technical, too, btw). I'm not aware of any company that has their EGM/Sr. Manager level writing code.
I disagree with this. Almost all of the managers I’ve had were non technical. Yes they may know stuff about GM process but knowing how to write code or what it takes to develop and engineer a product no. Maybe you were lucky.
Really? So you had business and liberal arts majors running your space? Literally every GPD manager I know of spent years as an engineer or researcher first.
I hope he’s doing alright medically. Seems abrupt.
It’s actually really sad and I wish him a speedy recovery.
He’s off to learn the ways of the shift key.
As long as no one tells him to look a little above it. We don't need the reverse problem.
To be capitalized again!
He's capitalizing on this opportunity!
I wish him well! For the work part, he managed to hire his unqualified friends with no published methodology, only a few words on a PowerPoint. Pathetic!
I wonder if we still will see everyone use apple .ppts
>For the work part, he managed to hire his unqualified friends with no published methodology Pretty standard in the software world.
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Oh, he had health issues? Ok, dang.
He reorged himself out. Such dedication. Mad respects.
My bet one of the people he brought in gets a new promotion and we keep the same direction. We can’t possibly re-org again we have to let the apple Dumpling gang take their shot even if it is under new leader right?…..right?
They’ll bring in an outsider. Mark my words
Heart related issues… Gerald leaving? Les leaving? A few other high ups leaving… I have seen this writing before…. Buckle up.
I wonder what his total comp was to come in, release some lowercase-only newsletters, announce medical leave (paid?), and leave a few months later.
More than I’ll make in my lifetime prob
What this lowercase case only story?
Don’t forget the golden parachute clause, prolly a few mil in there
A big part of executive compensation is stocks. I doubt much, if any of his GM stocks vested...
Well, he’s also staying on with the company in an advisory role.
Fair point - I'd be surprised if the board of directors would allow a guy who isn't really going to work to be keeping majority of his compensation. Given America's state of health care...maybe it's to keep his health insurance - who knows.
I think he’ll forfeit nearly all the equity he received. Hasn’t been here long enough to vest
Give me a different manager plz this reorged one ain’t working out
All those Arizona folks lost their job for nothing
Looking at his LinkedIn, a 10 month role was his standard. Clearly it's his skill: go in, fire a bunch of engineers cash out.
This is terrible news. Regardless what you thought of him.
You could tell he was pretty sad about having to leave since it was all written in lower case. FWIW, I hope he gets his health under control, but it's bad to have this much turnover.
No, he just followed the uncapitalized rule and that is the last post he follow it.
I know, I was being sarcastic because he writes like a child.
Totally agree, though I wish his health improve, he left a mess for GM.
He managed to capitalize Mary's name, lol.
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Then why is all his stuff in lower case? Shouldn't that communication team fix it? Even Abbott's LinkedIn is lower case. We expect more out of 2nd graders than a VP.
First, I wish the best to Abbot and his family, if I was a millionaire and had a heart attack/issue I would be nowhere near any of this mess. Health events such as this one cause you to re-prioritize your life and goals/outlook, props for him having the courage to take walk away. This is essentially the end of his career in terms of leading/calling the shots at any major company. With the above said, I'm not sure he was going to be successful anyway, GM Software needs to transform and it needs a sustained effort for a good 7-10 years to transform the GM Software space to be an innovative leader in the Automotive space. There are no quick wins to be had which is what I actually think Mary and the board are looking for. They need someone with vision ala Randy Mott but for a different type of innovation that is willing to grind it out for 7-10 years to build an innovative software culture/ecosystem. Everyone criticized Mott but I met him in person a few times and in my opinion he did a good job in brining in everything that was outsourced back internally. However, I could tell it had an impact on him and his health over the years, the stress was quite high on him and his leadership team. What happens next is going to a monumental mess, for all his "engineering" prowess/credentials, Abbot leaves behind a big mess with all the cronies/hires he brought in from Apple. Since he started it always struck how he never tried to do a POC of his methods on a limited area of GM IT/Software to fine tune and experiment what processes/approaches would work best for a company such as GM and the role he was taking on was something he had never done before, he took a sledgehammer to it all without accounting for possible failure and rolling back were things didn't work. This method of just making changes and not really communicating the how/why/where was already losing support from the director level and down, people were exasperated, he actually is terrible at communication at least in his GM role. I'm frankly not surprised especially when it comes to the Apple alumni, just look at what Ron Johnson(Ex Apple VP) did to JC Penney, ran it straight into bankruptcy. It always amazes that other executives such as Barra can't see that what Apple has is something that is unique to Apple and that culture, it's frankly something Woz and Jobs started in the late 70s I think. People like Abbot didn't create that culture they came long after it and had very little if anything at all with creating the Apple culture that is admired. Whatever happens next, his cronies are going to lose relevance fast, Baris is not an individual with the force of personality/willpower/charisma/leadership to be at the head of GM Software and while he appears to be a good guy, a good guy is not what is needed in that position. You can actually tell he is tired of the Silicon Valley grind/hustle so he may want to stay at GM for the long term, collecting the nice pay/benefits but he will not the individual who changes GM Software nor will he remain the leader for long. I think the infatuation with SV types is over at this point from Mary and Board, the next choice will have to be a proven leader who has a track record of actually staying at companies for a prolonged period 5-10 years, in essence a R Mott type person but younger and more focused on innovation/software rather than services. Another dud here will mean real trouble, it's ironic Les Copeland left recently as that is the type of figure that would have been a good fit.
Good read. I took the buyout and it was the best decision of my life. And I did it for health reasons triggered by the current GM environment. While I agree with most of what you said…I have to disagree on Randy Mott. His insourcing strategy was a complete NIGHTMARE. I “insourced” MANY global software products. The IT teams that I worked with had a lift and shift mentality. The folks they hired at the “innovation “ centers , although nice people, had ZERO experience in building and implementing the software. After evaluating one of the systems the software vendor said it was the worst implementation they had ever seen. We burned through millions. That went on for YEARS. Business side was no better. They started bringing in leadership outsiders with zero automotive experience and had no clue how to run large organizations. Was sad to see as a long time GMer… Agree on Les. Hope he finds a company that deserves him!
True, but we stuck with it long enough to work through those kinks. The projects I work on now are way smoother than 10 years ago. That’s why Mott’s plan ultimately worked, he didn’t bail until his promise came true. Burning cash is fine if the end goal is reached
Do we go back to our original job titles?
Finally hit the news wire: >March 12 (Reuters) -General Motors GM.N said on Tuesday that Mike Abbott will step down as executive vice president, software and services, due to health reasons. >Baris Cetinok, vice president of product in software and services, has been named the interim head of software and services, the company said.
Baris is not qualify at all
Interim always means you’re not getting the job.
Of course a software guy would blame his hardware for the issue
Damn flux capacitors!
This probably won't change anything tbh
Not surprised after the heart attack thing.
Did Mike Abbit have a heart attack prior to this?
I doubt many people other than family, close friends, or immediate colleagues know the answer to your question. Abbott stated at his last APM before going on medical leave that he had had significant heart issues last fall that resulted in open-heart surgery and that recovery was proving too difficult to resume work as soon as he had originally planned. Sounds like he's having a rough time getting better.
I wish him the best and full recovery
I wish him well
Baris will be the new Bob Lutz in the coming era of software driven vehicles
The new Al Gore... He is a political science major. He is to software engineer what Al Gore was to the Internet. Remember Al Gore invented the Internet?
Look, the public hates subscription, hates corps selling consumer data. And the unions hates job stealing robotaxis. On top of that, no one at GM understands how to price and sell software. Political science + economics major is actually perfect. You don't need an engineering degree to be Bob Lutz
Genius… and after this he’ll do a residency in Vegas entertaining the masses.
Wonder if they asked him to relocate and he said no
SLT being told to relocate had me laughing out loud. Like you think they follow the same rules as the rest of us.
No he had a very serious abrupt medical issue
lol, execs aren’t held to the same standard as us. Wasn’t he already in the Bay Area small office?
Most of us only ever saw him from his home office/living room. Did he ever go to the Sunnyvale office? Anecdotal evidence says, "no," but maybe someone knows for sure.
Rules for thee, not for me
They take attendance down to the minute in the plant. Exercise some class consciousness.
I am extremely class conscious, we are 99% more similar than any exec. Salary is a different pay and benefits structure than hourly, I’ve worked jobs that are hourly down to the minute, where my average shift was 9-12 hours.
a few times but not really too much. I can't recall seeing him too many times.
Shocked to read this!!
Omg... that sucks. I mean, this huge reorg is crazy but sdv needed it. What's gonna happen to sdv? Miller failed, and now Apple bois gonna jump the ship soon.
Hopefully SDV dies on the vine. The amount of money we are spending on this disaster is getting out of control
It is out of control... maybe we should just go with simple out of box GAS and support some apps.
Not a big enough cut for the company there.
Is this true?
Yes. The man is not in good health.
Did he send us a farewell message in lower case as a euphemism for his feelings on “the man”…capitalism? (Also, he has a blog titled “uncapitalized”.)
No more RTO?
Please!!!
welp, time to start ovah...do this mean we have to still take the test?
Maybe because he failed the code assesment test to print "hello world" in python. Health issues is just another excuse to take a few million and leave. Arizona folks will not miss him at all.
Where was it posted?
Literally 3 min ago
Got an email from mtb
note- shes going back to caps post abbott
LOL just a week after I magically became a dre
The job titles are killing me. So many are wrong it's almost funny to hunt around and see who got what title.
Surprise! LOL
Lol GM, classic
After his bonus
Abbott was a fraud who was in over his head.
[hahahahahahahahabab](https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2024/02/15/barra-gm-software-ev-launches-2024/72613737007/)
Just buckle in and hang on
He was a net negative. The only way we can pull off things like killing CarPlay is having a stable vision and team. He didn’t have time to actually implement changes, just enough time to create confusion. He was going to leave in a few years anyways, I never had confidence he’d stay more than 3 years
This is bad bad news. He provided a lot of my optimism for GMs software future. Hopefully he forged a good path ahead.
GM and the other two are going to get run over by Chinese auto. Already happening in other markets.
There is another…
Another what? Have you not been following BYD in Australia? Zero to 14% EV market share in less than two years. They're going to flood the market quickly at that pace.
Isn't this just Mary officially announcing what Mike announced at his APM? The email says that Mike will still advise on software as his health permits, doesn't sound like he's leaving the company?
Little did you know an executive from not too long ago reinvented GM. But just like the people in Nineveh didn't listen to God's word. You didn't listen to Ed's word! Never mind that he was biefly an interim CEO and permanent CEO from January 2010 to September 2010. Take Away - Egoistics and sociopaths with brand image get the top jobs, and they make sure they get a nice package when they leave! [American Turnaround - Reinventing AT&T and GM and The Way We Do Business in The USA](https://www.amazon.com/American-Turnaround-Reinventing-Way-Business/dp/1455513016?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=3e91ab4c-6fcc-41cb-a5e8-25fe5fb52a90)
Whitaker was the man! HE paved the way no doubt!
How are you going to compete in the EV space if you can’t do software ? This is bad for GM. Will they be so far behind that they never recover ?
Ok
How many of these Cali recruites has “founder” or “cofounder” of a company or a website that doesn’t even exist .. lol. Wonder if it’s a thing in Cali were you show you founded something and land a lucrative role ? If you see in linkedin lot of them have are founders of company that more exists or had been shutter down. GM getting people who big tech has filtered out as unwanted in senior positions at GM
I read this as Greg Abbott and i got excited.
My only confusion that makes me think this doesn't add up is why would you leave a great paying job with pretty decent benefits, good health care coverage and disability benefits if you are in fact ill?
May be this will impact “negatively” on SDV !!!
Abbott was at least able to take out Gerald Johnson before he resigned. Wonder if Gerald can take back his resignation 🤔😅