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Mark Hurd Has Died

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Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#151

Post by btilly »

Barrin92 wrote: post #140
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…

>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 wh…

Ironically the act of writing that couldn't have happened unless he continued to prioritize his work over his family.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#152

Post by RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u »

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…

OTOH, Newton never married either, and apocryphally was proud that he's a virgin.

Even a genius may not be immune to FOMO.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#153

Post by cogman10 »

notus wrote: post #120

This was the type of dude who would implement a wage freeze on his employees while taking home the biggest bonus ever recorded in history. Good riddance. The world needs less people like him. Yeah he pulled off some impressive shit at HP, but the means in which that victory was achieved are more important than the victory itself. EDIT: lol people who think they are the next Mark Hurd downvoting me, I'm amazed at how…

I'd say he single handedly got HP in it's current non-functional state.

He gutted R&D, slashed important internal departments, tried to outsource everything, etc.

And with all of this, he ended up spending a billion dollars on palm, which was basically a complete waste of money. But hey, they were trendy at the time so investors loved it! (The poor palm employees that basically got shit canned).

Now, HP is a shell of it's former self and collapsing under it's own weight. They don't have the people to innovate, they are actively downsizing (my current employer is hiring a lot of their talent) and all the while they are trying to bridge gaps using underpaid contractors (I got a job offer in linked-in for them at $40k... lol! That was less than I earned there as an intern!)

The only people that praise hurd are those that didn't see the absolute destruction he caused to moral. But hey, he turned profits for a few years, so he must be amazing, right?

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#154

Post by chrisseaton »

_lbaq wrote: post #137
chrisseaton wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

If you're a writer people value your hard work and long hours. If you're an athlete people value your commitment to your performance. But if you work in business? People think you're an idiot for working hard. I don't know what the difference is. I think people who are miserable at work struggle to understand that other people take joy in it.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#155

Post by bedhead »

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…

These kinds of people see their careers the same way someone creative gives their life for that you mention.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#156

Post by gist »

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…

> I feel really bad for Hurd and his family

His family yes. Hurd though is not around anymore.

> Why work that hard? It's not hard if you enjoy it. I work just about every day. I enjoy what I do and being at the office. Not every single thing but very generally most things and most days. Not working feels strange to me. Would I work less if I had more money? The thought of that scares me. I enjoy working. Part of the reason is the positive feedback of making money but part of it has nothing to do with that. After all people play games on the computer. They are addicted to that and they in most cases don't get any money at all. Well for some of us work is play. And you make money from that. It's very enjoyable vs. being at a vacation home (I have one and have for a long time).

> The job is so demanding and so hard it seems like Mark worked himself to death, literally.

Well as others have pointed out that is probably not what has happened. Now could an illness been exacerbated by lack of rest and focusing only on work? Sure. Maybe not enough sleep or denying some basic thing that is needed. But not because you didn't take time off to relax and smell the roses. He died very quickly. Could he have ignored some symptoms? Sure but maybe not. Maybe it just happened.

> He probably could have retired happy and rich at like 40 years old...

You seem to be tying everything to making money and of course assuming that someone having enough money to not work is going to be happy. Not all of us are like that as my comment is suggesting and as others have said.

> I understand when an artist or someone creative gives their life to their work: it's an obsession that is personal.

Why? What makes what an artist does that is creative make it different than someone in business, entertainment or anything else? Business is an art and enjoyment. Maybe not to you but certainly to many people (me included).

> But giving your life to Oracle

Implies that some companies might be worth 'giving your life to' or some causes. Not the case. Nothing is worth (even your example of art) giving your life to. Of course you can think that some social cause is worth 'giving your life' but that means you are also doing the wrong thing to your family if you have one. They will maybe suffer when you are not there.

> Even the day to day workers over there get to go home and see their families every night. At the C-level, you basically live in a private jet and never see your family... Very sad.

Sad to you. Maybe they like it that way?

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#157

Post by abawany »

cogman10 wrote: post #153
notus wrote: post #120

This was the type of dude who would implement a wage freeze on his employees while taking home the biggest bonus ever recorded in history. Good riddance. The world needs less people like him. Yeah he pulled off some impressive shit at HP, but the means in which that victory was achieved are more important than the victory itself. EDIT: lol people who think they are the next Mark Hurd downvoting me, I'm amazed at how…

I'd say he single handedly got HP in it's current non-functional state. He gutted R&D, slashed important internal departments, tried to outsource everything, etc. And with all of this, he ended up spending a billion dollars on palm, which was basically a complete waste of money. But hey, they were trendy at the time so investors loved it! (The poor palm employees that basically got shit canned). Now, HP is a shell of…

I was there around the same time; I was also involved peripherally with Superdome - saw Carly's reign and left during Hurd's. IMO he was a breath of fresh air in contrast to Carly's whatever-that-was, you are right that he turns out to have fundamentally gutted HP R&D. It was sad to see.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#158

Post by DougRoss »

johnpowell wrote: post #86
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…

Last year I was diagnosed with neck/mouth cancer. I did three months of radiation and chemo and it cleared it up. Then two months later I went in for a PET scan and the cancer had spread to my liver. So more ration for that. Then six months later another PET scan and the cancer popped up in a new place on my liver. I'm currently on Pembrolizumab and my oncologist wants to give that a few months and see how the lesion…

John, thank you for the inspirational message.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#159

Post by DougRoss »

tyre wrote: post #141
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…

> the best The best at what? I think that’s the real existential question. The best at making money? Okay. Maybe I’m not as interested in having “created significant shareholder value” on my gravestone.

Agree with Flatline. Sometimes a person's job is their passion. We all know software developers who love to code, nights, weekends, for work...

The CEO job is the ultimate programming job. You are orchestrating people, money, processes, sales, product development, IT and more...

Probably why CEOs are paid multiples of a typical worker.

Very few can handle the job.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#160

Post by flowerlad »

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 venture a guess: this is so that Larry Ellison can retain control of the company. He is Chairman & CTO, but since the CEOs are “Half CEOs” he is also virtual CEO. I’d add that this is a good thing. Larry is an amazing visionary, who wrote Oracle Parallel Server during the early days and is also good at marketing. Larry/Oracle sucks at user experience so their client products are terrible. A weird thing about Larry is that he invented cloud computing in the 90’s (he called it network computing) and yet Oracle is late to the cloud party.
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