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Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

nytimes.com

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Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#31

Post by arach »

gamache wrote: post #26
vicparekh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Meg wasted her time at eBay. eBay is a company and therefore we are not privy to a lot of the internal politics. Their acquisition of Skype made no sense. When she ran for governor, the method by which she handled the fact that she had hired an illegal immigrant proved to me that she was seriously unfit to be anything but a Senior Manager.

> Their acquisition of Skype made no sense. For what it's worth: eBay paid $2.6B for Skype in 2005, sold 65% of it for $2B in 2009, and then made an additional $2.5B selling its remaining stake to Microsoft in 2010. So it turned out to net almost $2B over five years. I'm not an accountant, but I could live with those numbers. (disclosure: eBay owns the company that bought the company where I work)

Skype retained its value and even became more valuable, but that doesn't mean it made strategic sense for a marketplace / e-commerce company.

Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#32

Post by zackattack »

pedalpete wrote: post #25
plinkplonk wrote: post #14

I am just a dumb developer, so I am probably not quite getting the subtle management logic at play here, but what's with random incompetents being appointed CEOs and paid millions of dollars to make things worse or at least not much better? (Bartz at yahoo, Apotheker at HP)It seems like a systemic inefficiency to me. (btw this is a genuine question, not snark. I'd appreciate anyone versed in how boards etc work enlig…

I agree with your comments about the 'bench', unfortunately, in many companies, the great people you have on the bench get snatched up by competitors, particularly if you are unable to inspire them with a coherent vision. Tim Cook was lured too Apple from Compaq, and though he was only at Compaq for 6 months, I suspect he was not engaged by HPs strategy there (I'm not positive that this was post-merger, but I think i…

>I'd like to see more CEOs put their money where their mouth is and take the majority of their salary in options, and I think the board should require that.

That simply incentivizes CEOs to pump stock prices and not create long term shareholder value; moreover, the market can be unpredictable and if the stock price gets manipulated by dear Mr. Bernanke, why should the CEO be punished?

Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#33

Post by Apple-Guy »

brk wrote: post #23

I was going to write a longer post, but it can be summarized as this: They're Fucked. Nothing against Meg, but she has never been a visionary of any sort. HP is so terribly lost that they need the reincarnation of Hewlett + Packard + Jobs in a single person that can work 80 hour days for about 10 years. HP has fallen to the "used to be great" category and now we are going to watch the corpse slowly rot.

Agree. Announcing abandoning products weeks after release, and selling off its primary business without a buyer, and then this. They show they are running out of ideas. Maybe the board needs to get fired too.

Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#34

Post by throw_away »

chollida1 wrote: post #29
tybris wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the board in older companies usually consists of people with MBAs from expensive schools who just don't get technology (hint: it's not about cutting costs, it's about building technology).

> Because the board in older companies usually consists of people with MBAs from expensive schools who just don't get technology ( Is that true? here's your chance to get a data point. Show me which people on HP's board hold MBA's http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-g...

Here's the breakdown:

Andreesen - no mba (http://www.nndb.com/people/442/000022376/)

Apotheker - no mba (http://www.nndb.com/people/417/000253655/)

Babbio - MBA (http://www.nndb.com/people/159/000124784/)

Baldauf - masters in econ (http://www.nndb.com/people/177/000124802/)

Banerji - MBA (http://bx.businessweek.com/kellogg-school-of-management/shum...)

Gupta - MBA (http://www.nndb.com/people/889/000168385/)

Hammergreen - MBA (http://www.nndb.com/people/169/000124794/)

Lane - No MBA (http://www.be.wvu.edu/hall_fame/lane.htm)

Livermore - MBA (http://www.nndb.com/people/763/000128379/)

Renier - MBA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_M._Reiner)

Russo - No MBA (http://www.nndb.com/people/753/000126375/)

Senequier - No MBA (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110120xa.html)

Thompson - MBA (http://www.nndb.com/people/187/000118830/)

Whitman - MBA (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110120xa.html)

so, eight of fourteen.

Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#35

Post by trotsky »

It seems more than any one specific CEO, the HP board has proven itself unfit to oversee the company. It's not incomprehensible that the best thing they could do for shareholder value and to protect their employees jobs would be breaking HP up and finding buyers. After all, aside from the earnings shortfalls all the big picture problems the market has with Apotheker have all been board approved.

Perhaps Ellison wasn't just blowing smoke when he said "The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple (AAPL.O) board fired Steve Jobs many years ago" about Hurd.

Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#36

Post by mootothemax »

seldo wrote: post #5

What do people think of Meg Whitman's record at eBay? She ran for governor on her record as CEO there, but eBay has always seemed to me like a terribly-led company, sitting on its laurels as first-mover and squandering opportunities to move into new markets while startups chip away at its core business.

What do people think of Meg Whitman's record at eBay?

From her Wikipedia page: During her ten years with the company she oversaw expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. [1]

Seems pretty impressive to me. It's also easy to forget how many companies tried and failed in this space, including the likes of Yahoo.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Whitman

Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#38

Post by lukifer »

plinkplonk wrote: post #14

I am just a dumb developer, so I am probably not quite getting the subtle management logic at play here, but what's with random incompetents being appointed CEOs and paid millions of dollars to make things worse or at least not much better? (Bartz at yahoo, Apotheker at HP)It seems like a systemic inefficiency to me. (btw this is a genuine question, not snark. I'd appreciate anyone versed in how boards etc work enlig…

The short version: the skills it takes to become a leader may or may not coincide with the skills it takes to be a leader. And board members are subject to the same irrationalities and social exploits as the rest of us.

Re: Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO

#39

Post by jerhewet »

rsbrown wrote: post #15
seldo wrote: post #5

What do people think of Meg Whitman's record at eBay? She ran for governor on her record as CEO there, but eBay has always seemed to me like a terribly-led company, sitting on its laurels as first-mover and squandering opportunities to move into new markets while startups chip away at its core business.

"a terribly-led company, sitting on its laurels as first-mover and squandering opportunities to move into new markets" As a former employee of that behemoth, I can only say: you hit the nail on the head.

Completely agree, looking at it from the viewpoint of a seller before Meg ran it into the ground. Yes, you HN Virginia's, she did run eBay into the ground. A simple Google search will turn up plenty of people on plenty of forums that can fill you in. The stock price tells the same story.
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