41–50 of 50 posts
There was an article I read about this yesterday on one of the big tech websites, I'm not sure which one. HP basically hired a guy that was good at something, and operated in a certain way, and now that he's doing it, they're firing him. Granted, not everything has been well-executed, but come on, its like buying a motorcycle and then returning it because it isn't air-conditioned.
Am I the only one noticing some latent sexism in some of these comments? I view Whitman's role with Ebay as comparable to Eric Schmidt and Google. Both joined about 2 years about their respective companies were founded and made them #1 in each of their target sectors. I don't think anyone here would seriously question that Eric Schmidt could run HP (not that he'd want to). But reading through these comments, I'm gett…
Am I the only one noticing some latent sexism in some of these comments? I view Whitman's role with Ebay as comparable to Eric Schmidt and Google. Both joined about 2 years about their respective companies were founded and made them #1 in each of their target sectors. I don't think anyone here would seriously question that Eric Schmidt could run HP (not that he'd want to). But reading through these comments, I'm gett…
There was an article I read about this yesterday on one of the big tech websites, I'm not sure which one. HP basically hired a guy that was good at something, and operated in a certain way, and now that he's doing it, they're firing him. Granted, not everything has been well-executed, but come on, its like buying a motorcycle and then returning it because it isn't air-conditioned.
Exactly. But we should wait and see how this plays out. Maybe they realized that strategy was a mistake to begin with and are trying to correct it. He hasn't necessarily been turned into a scapegoat yet.
During Whitman's gubernatorial campaign there was a great quote on SFGate, something like: "Meg Whitman is the only force in the universe that could compel me to vote for Jerry Brown." I felt the same way, pretty much. I don't know much about her work at eBay, but the distant, autocratic way she ran her campaign -- she didn't get out and talk to people, she just stayed in her castle and put out ads -- strikes me as t…
I once got a chance to talk to Meg when I worked at eBay. After the, very brief, interaction I dubbed her "Queen Margaret" as the look on her face suggested that rabble like me shouldn't be seen, at least by the aristocracy. Also, across the street from the eBay HQ in Campbell there was a restaurant that had failed and Hooters wanted to open a location in it's place. Meg fought Hooters for nearly two years. Good luck…
Does this mean they'll bring back the TouchPad? Is it even possible, given the people they just laid off from that team?
WebOS features some impressive application design on top of a turkey of an OS. HP shouldn't have tried to ship any of that junk.
The really disgusting part is that these CEO's have absolutely nothing to lose. If Meg Whitman gets this job she is basically guaranteed 10's of millions of dollars - whether or not she ruins the company. Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd, Leo Apotheker and the ex-Compaq CEO (Capellas?) all walked away with 20+ million dollars. And for what? Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard - not to mention Steve Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg etc. - e…
CEO's like sports coaches are hired to be fired. It's really rare for a CEO to leave on their own terms.
We like to think of CEO's going from one company to another, but in truth once you've been a CEO and fired you don't often get that chance again.
The large severance pay is supposed to reflect the "fact" that you probably won't get a job like this again.
During Whitman's gubernatorial campaign there was a great quote on SFGate, something like: "Meg Whitman is the only force in the universe that could compel me to vote for Jerry Brown." I felt the same way, pretty much. I don't know much about her work at eBay, but the distant, autocratic way she ran her campaign -- she didn't get out and talk to people, she just stayed in her castle and put out ads -- strikes me as t…
Examine the skype acquisition: the way I understand, Meg/ebay acquired skype without buying the backing technology / p2p tech which remained owned by Joltid / Niklas / Janus. Ebay then went on to not pay some of the earnouts of the skype acquisition which I'm sure made Niklas / Janus think highly of ebay [1]. It literally boggles the mind that she could be stupid enough to acquire a company without owning the backing tech; it would be like a company buying an OS that came without ownership of the kernel. Niklas / Janus then used this to earn a bunch more money when ebay went on to sell skype.
For some background: http://gigaom.com/2009/09/01/ebay-skype-sale/
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2007/10/01/skype-ceo-zennstrom-steps-d...