I’m not sure what it is about this post that sets me off so. Maybe it’s the “LinkedIn”-friendly prose. Maybe it’s the “lessons learned” which reveal nothing remotely insightful. Or maybe it isn’t this guy at all and is just my general frustration with modern big tech that bleeds its customers and abruptly dismisses products, projects, and employees to buoy its stock price.
But my gut reaction after reading was “what a bunch of self-serving nonsense”.
From “they needed me to babysit the CEO and board” to “I still believe in HP despite destroying 1.2 billion in value while I was on an 8-week break” to “the DECIDE framework”, it’s a masterclass of modern tech executive bloviation. They are always so confident and convincing as they explain their cognitive dissonance, preaching to audiences stuck in the same reality-distorting game. The tech market is a mess because these same types are utterly paralyzed over the path forward now that LLMs have emerged but full of so many words to explain how they have it all figured out.
But this guy insists it isn't his fault. He was just unlucky that he wasn't there to be the beacon of reason their leadership needed:
> Their exact words still echo in my mind: "The CEO and board need adult supervision." Think about the implications of that statement. HP's own technical staff, the people closest to our innovation work, believed that senior leadership couldn't be trusted to make sound technology decisions without someone there to provide oversight and guidance. They weren't wrong. The numbers proved it in the most painful way possible.
Hollywood-grade drama and warning sirens all around, but a few paragraphs later…
> Despite watching the WebOS disaster unfold, despite being blamed for not preventing it, despite everything that went wrong during that period, I still believe in HP as an organization.
Mercy. The author thinks he's provided an apology to explain his culpability in the failures of the Palm acquisition but, instead, he's just made it clear he has awful judgement.
HP is far, far away from the once-great version of itself. For example, once they achieved dominance, HP ensh*ttified their printer business beyond any reasonable tolerance level to squeeze every last dollar out of its customers. They abandoned all pretense of technical excellence or innovation or customer satisfaction and embraced dark patterns to please their MBA masters.
Like so many of their peers, they see their employees as headcount and their customers as vassals.
That’s the type of decision-making HP values. That's the type of company HP is. And this guy, his excuses, and his experience are a shining example of why.