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Mark Hurd Has Died

cnbc.com

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Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#181

Post by kthejoker2 »

jeffdavis wrote: post #171
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…

You are making a lot of assumptions. Maybe he saw himself as creative, and believed he was building important things? Maybe he was a great family man? Maybe his death had nothing to do with overwork? Maybe he did stop caring about money at 40, and continued for other reasons?

Definitely not a great family man, he was terminated from HP for bad behavior with a Playboy model turned contractor.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#182

Post by pazimzadeh »

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…

Thank you for sharing. Your immune system is searching for an antigen in a process similar to brute forcing a password (thankfully the file has more than one password). Once a password is found, the immune cells multiply like crazy and tumors melt. It can happen at any time. If your cancer is virus related, you can use vaccines to expose your immune system to potential passwords and improve your results. Though I'm not a doctor my gut feeling is that you should do as many different things as possible, that you normally don't. Go deep sea diving, change your diet, change it back, do sprints if you're normally more of an endurance person, etc.

You might want to check out Maitake mushrooms (but talk to your doctor first): https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs...

and even psilocybin, for the mental aspects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/

Good luck.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#183

Post by CamperBob2 »

biztos wrote: post #176
CamperBob2 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't put my art before everything else in life Which is why you're not Mark Hurd or Vincent Van Gogh. Your family will (presumably) remember you fondly, and that's your reward. It will have to be enough. If it is, then good for you. It's not what everybody else wants out of life, and that's OK.

Well I’m not entirely without ambitions for immortality but yes, I assume I’ll never be that immortal and I’m cool with it. Funny though I bet nobody who didn’t know him personally will remember Hurd in 50 years. Maybe a case study in B-school, but they don’t build monuments to folks who ran other people’s companies. Not that it isn’t crazy hard work, just that I don’t think a Hurd or a Cook is much concerned with th…

It's tough to assess just how great a manager he was, I'll definitely grant you that. He took over from Carly Fiorina at HP, and she wasn't exactly a tough act to follow (although her predecessors obviously were.) As long as he didn't set the building on fire, he was going to come out looking good after her tenure.

And certainly, nobody who worked at Oracle will be remembered as one of the all-time best-loved business figures.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#184

Post by CamperBob2 »

nugget wrote: post #178
rootusrootus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, to each their own, right? It's earned him a net worth north of a billion dollars, but for him it clearly has nothing to do with the money. He does not really spend much of it at all, he just works. It's like OCD.

I've seen first-hand that it can become a self-reinforcing problem and solution in one. You spend too much time at work and never develop meaningful personal relationships with your spouse and children. Years later, when most people retire to spend time with the spouse and children (and grandchildren), there's something missing, and the solution is to head back to work, where there can be more substantial professiona…

Or, maybe they just liked their job.

Reminds me of the recent HN story about the lady who ran a large furniture retail outlet in Nebraska. She was something like 85 years old when Berkshire Hathaway bought the company. It never occurred to Warren Buffett to demand a noncompete agreement from an 85-year-old, but he says he won't make that mistake again.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#185

Post by signaturesystem »

when i worked at NCR beginning during late 1989, mark hurd led a point-of-sale (POS) division effort which personally deprived me of intellectual property now worth approximately $30MM/day in credit card settlement transactions to the company. what's even worse is how they sued others e.g. verifone for vast sums, using their fabricated claim to stolen property. like his crooked & overpaid "management" buddies, they were rewarded for what they could get away with (havoc), not what they actually created. mark's bad karma has finally caught up with him and i hope that he rots in hell!

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#187

Post by exemployeeofhp »

Mark Hurd...sad for his family...he was a MAJOR league asshole at work profiting at his workers expense...lest us not forget his 10% paycut for EDS employees only after the HP acquistion.....then he cheated on his expense report...his wife with a contractor...got fired for filing false expense reports with HP to cover his affair...ya not missing him much!

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#188

Post by shakkhar »

marmada wrote: post #179
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 like this comment is rather insulting. You shouldn't feel sorry for him -- don't assume that he or his family regretted his lifestyle. Is being the CEO of Oracle not creative? Is there anything wrong with devoting your life to a company? I would say there is nothing wrong with devoting one's life to a startup, so I don't see why there is anything wrong with devoting one's life to being a CEO. Maybe some people…

Speculating a bit, but I think Mark knew he was not well. He had not been looking good for at least a year. He just kept on working until he physically couldn't anymore. I didn't find the above comment insulting, but exposes a genuine disconnect between the world people like Mark Hurd live in and the world ordinary people like us live in. I myself have been wondering the exact same thing all day since I heard the news.

If I were to know that I have 3 months left on this earth, I would want to spend all of it with my wife and the rest of my family. I don't think that's dying in mediocrity.

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#189

Post by nominalguy »

Worked for the company for a Long stint. Mark’s leadership style is hmm controversial at best and many may not agree. But to die so young while at the peak is always a sad thing to anyone

Re: Mark Hurd Has Died

#190

Post by exemployeeofhp »

cogman10 wrote: post #150
ScottBurson wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was he? I arrived at HP shortly before he left, via an acquisition. I suppose he okayed the purchase, which suggests some amount of forward-looking thought, but I also heard that he had defunded HP Labs to some extent, and that he was more into cost control than investing in new technology.

That's what I heard. I interned there shortly after he'd left for oracle. He wasn't well liked in my department (Superdome!). IT and Ops had been completely outsourced which wasn't particularly appreciated.

Mark Hurd...sad for his family...he was a MAJOR league asshole at work profiting at his workers expense...lest us not forget his 10% paycut for EDS employees only after the HP acquistion.....then he cheated on his expense report...his wife with a contractor...got fired for filing false expense reports with HP to cover his affair...ya not missing him much!
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