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Mark Hurd Has Died

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Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#131

Post by smacktoward »

blueberry_47 wrote: post #107
jkcorrea wrote: post #31

Obviously this is very sad news and I wish all the best & my condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. I'm not very familiar with how Oracle is run, but it surprised me to see "co-CEO". I always assumed this wasn't a great way to run a company, and yet here is a major exception. Can someone enlighten me as to why Oracle chooses to have co-CEOs? Is it something specific to their business?

Look, it doesn't take a genius to know that any organization thrives when it has two leaders. Go ahead, name a country that doesn't have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be without the popes?

You kid, I know, but it was seriously proposed for the U.S. government in the mid-1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Disquisition_on_Government

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#132

Post by threeio »

blueberry_47 wrote: post #107
jkcorrea wrote: post #31

Obviously this is very sad news and I wish all the best & my condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. I'm not very familiar with how Oracle is run, but it surprised me to see "co-CEO". I always assumed this wasn't a great way to run a company, and yet here is a major exception. Can someone enlighten me as to why Oracle chooses to have co-CEOs? Is it something specific to their business?

Look, it doesn't take a genius to know that any organization thrives when it has two leaders. Go ahead, name a country that doesn't have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be without the popes?

Take my upvote. The Office (S06E03).

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#133

Post by nearst »

coldtea wrote: post #101
clavalle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some of the best, making and guiding companies is their art and obsession. That's the nice take on it. For others (or from a different perspective) for some making money itself is a bit of an addiction that swallows everything else. I know a great guy -- very kind, very smart. But he doesn't really know how to have fun if he's not making money. That's his game and he's great at it. But I feel like he's missing ou…

> For some of the best, making and guiding companies is their art and obsession. Again, why? If it wasn't "making and guiding companies", but e.g. someone was obsessed with making spaghetti paintings, and working for it the same hours, would we consider them balanced?

As others have said, some people like to spend 20-30 hours/week training for an Ironmmn, others spend much more than that in front of the TV watching Netflix.

How's that different from working 80 hours/week IF you enjoy it? Just don't force others to do the same.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#134

Post by mlyle »

hbgaw wrote: post #129
VonGuard wrote: post #15

I feel really bad for Hurd and his family. Why work that hard? The 24/7 CEO lifestyle seems like such a waste of time if you end up working it to the day you die. Like, why work that hard? For the family you never see? The vacation home you can visit for 5 days a year? The yacht you leave parked 360 days a year? The job is so demanding and so hard it seems like Mark worked himself to death, literally. He probably cou…

This is not a comment on Hurd. However, I am not always sure about “working hard”. There are many reasons why c-level people stay at work for long hours and not necessarily because they are “working hard”. How many times have we witnessed CEOs not owning up when things go wrong? I did not know is a common excuse.

Conversely, being at work twice as many hours won't get you twice as much work; and even if you actually work twice as much you probably won't even know twice as much.

...And in an organization with thousands of people there's more knowledge than even a hundred people can fully absorb. So I don't think this particular criticism is fair.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#135

Post by trevyn »

VonGuard wrote: post #27
eigenvalue wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing the cause of death, I think it's premature to say that he worked himself to death. It was probably some kind of cancer that probably would have happened anyway. The bigger question I think is, if he could do it over again, would he have tried to spend more of his short time on earth with his family and relaxing/enjoying life rather than working? And even that is not so clear cut-- it may well be that…

Maybe. But I blame the work for the death because he only took sick leave a few months back, then suddenly died. That to me says he worked right up until he couldn't anymore. A normal person would be retiring at 65 or so. And while the job may have seemed important, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's all that important when compared to family and personal enjoyment. It's not like he worked for a compan…

>A normal person would be retiring at 65 or so.

Mark was 62; maybe you’re thinking of Larry, 75?

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#136

Post by hinkley »

sharadov wrote: post #81
hinkley wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a couple of pretty good bosses over the years. I'm not sure what it says about me but I'm about 50:50 for managers versus developers among the group of people I'd list as mentors. The good ones either could do, or at least verbalize how they wished their bosses would do, some pretty effective delegation by... well... leading. There are ways to communicate the overall picture and the goals of a project so tha…

You are right, its definitely a leadership issue, if you have really hired the right lieutenants and 100% trust them, you don't need to be pulling 70 hr weeks. Unfortunately, most "leaders" never allow that, they love to get involved in every fire - big or small, and I feel, they derive their sense of self-worth from it.

You know the romantic arc in some comedies and many action movies? The people in a stressful situation form a bond. At the beginning they hated each other. At the end they were living happily ever after.

It's not just a movie trope, it's a human cliche. Pour enough oxytocin onto a human brain and you'll believe anybody is your bestie. Survival creates a bond.

These guys create emergencies and then become emotionally invested in the heroes who show up and fix the problem. If they do that repeatedly, the bond is stronger. Infuriatingly, that often holds for people fixing the same problem over and over. They want to keep these 'friends' around and ignore everyone else.

They have no emotional bond for most of the people who would let them go home after 40 or 50 hours.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#137

Post by _lbaq »

chrisseaton wrote: post #125
_lbaq wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few old people looking back with perspective say that they worked to little...

Tons of people look back and wish they achieved more and pushed themselves to their potential.

Took more "risks" yes, worked harder? No, the most interesting people I meet in my life hardly work even 40 hours, let alone 60 or 80 hour weeks, they know what important and not...

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#138

Post by _lbaq »

bradhe wrote: post #34
jkcorrea wrote: post #31

Obviously this is very sad news and I wish all the best & my condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. I'm not very familiar with how Oracle is run, but it surprised me to see "co-CEO". I always assumed this wasn't a great way to run a company, and yet here is a major exception. Can someone enlighten me as to why Oracle chooses to have co-CEOs? Is it something specific to their business?

I can't speak to why they have a co-CEO, but I'd just remind you that Oracle is a pretty exceptional company (using "exceptional" in the sense of "not like everyone else" and not in the sense of an endorsement).

Its windy at the top of a company, a lot of pressure and constant need to make good decisions, some companies chose to have two people that complement each other, the sum of it is larger than its parts.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#139

Post by skunkpocalypse »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #127
biztos wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would we consider them balanced? No, but I never heard anyone say "again, why" about Van Gogh. The why is self-evident in retrospect. I wouldn't put my art before everything else in life, and I'm not saying Mark Hurd did, but I get that some people do and once in a while that results in an incredible gift to humanity. Most of the time it doesn't, but I don't see how you get a Van Gogh without a lot of people giving…

Van Gogh was utterly miserable though. I don't think he'd consider his life a success. To frame it with someone I know much better, what about Nikola Tesla? Profoundly accomplished, objectively made enormous contributions to engineering that made huge improvements to the quality of life for a large chunk of humanity. He was utterly obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge and nothing else. On his death bed he regretted…

> Van Gogh was utterly miserable though.

Geniuses usually are.

That does not in any way diminish their contribution.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#140

Post by Barrin92 »

eigenvalue wrote: post #23
VonGuard wrote: post #15

I feel really bad for Hurd and his family. Why work that hard? The 24/7 CEO lifestyle seems like such a waste of time if you end up working it to the day you die. Like, why work that hard? For the family you never see? The vacation home you can visit for 5 days a year? The yacht you leave parked 360 days a year? The job is so demanding and so hard it seems like Mark worked himself to death, literally. He probably cou…

Without knowing the cause of death, I think it's premature to say that he worked himself to death. It was probably some kind of cancer that probably would have happened anyway. The bigger question I think is, if he could do it over again, would he have tried to spend more of his short time on earth with his family and relaxing/enjoying life rather than working? And even that is not so clear cut-- it may well be that…

>the bigger question I think is, if he could do it over again, would he have tried to spend more of his short time on earth with his family and relaxing/enjoying life rather than working?

Kai-Fu Lee writes about this in his latest book and he came to the conclusion that he should have prioritised his family much more and that it was pretty much his biggest regret in life. Seems to be very, very common among people who come close to death.

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