Work Matters

Tag: Mark Hurd

  • The Root Cause of Mark Hurd’s Demise

    Given all those lawyers and the confidentiality agreements that have been signed, we will likely never know exactly what happened between Hurd and that very attractive actress, Jessica Jodie Fisher. But from both what had been said, and not said, it seems that Mark Hurd's demise can be explained by an old Yiddish expression that, roughly translated, means "When the prick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground."

    I don't know the Yiddish words, but it sure seems apt here.

    P.S. There is an interesting if small literature on "Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid;" I suspect that Mr. Hurd's name will begin to appear in it; there is a lot written about Bill Clinton in it, as you might expect.

  • On HP’s Mark Hurd: “Assholes Sometimes Get Their Due”

    This was the entire content of an email that I just got from a well-informed Silicon Valley insider.   As most of you know by now, the HP Board canned Mark Hurd today because of his allegedly unsavory actions surrounding a sexual harassment claim.  The contrast between this story and my nostalgic post yesterday about the good old days at Hewlett=Packard could not be more striking.

    But the events that prompted the above line are a bit more specific.  I had recently sent a draft of a blog post to several Silicon Valley insiders in which I suggested that Mark Hurd was to be applauded for his skill at turning knowledge into action during his reign as  HP CEO.  Two of the people I wrote reacted by saying that, although Hurd had done a good job of leading HP's strategy execution, as the author of The No Asshole Rule, I would be hypocritical to write a post praising him because he was known to be a certified asshole. One wrote me:

    "I have heard a lot of horrific stories about how he treats people and how people are treated by the many high level managers (called "Mini Mark's)  he has hired from the outside."

    I am lucky to have such wise people reviewing my work, but none us realized how quickly their concerns would come to light so publicly.  I thank them from saving me from embarrassment. In addition, if these rumors about the "Mini Marks" are true it sounds like a lot more needs to be done than just canning the CEO.  Hewlett-Packard (or HP as it is now called) remains a market leader and still has many great people: perhaps a new leader and top team that are adept at marrying performance and humanity can turn it into a great company once again. 

    Bill and Dave must be rolling over in their graves. 

    P.S. I got an inquiry for a journalist writing about deadline on the story.  Here is what I wrote her, which continues the themes above, and in many other places in my writings:

    Hurd was a great CEO from purely financial
    measures. But the mass layoffs and soullessness that emerged under his leadership,
    and – if true – the persistent rumors that he and other members of the
    senior team treated employees with disrespect, all reinforced the belief that,
    to make it in business these days, it is OK – or even good – to treat other
    people like dirt.   The strength of this assumption seems to be
    growing, even though some of our best US companies don’t follow that model at
    all – from IBM, to Pixar, to Google, to P&G.  Perhaps a benefit of this story and what
    follows in its wake will be a realization that, to be called a great company or
    a great leader, both performance and humanity must be evident and revered.  That is one of the main points of my new
    book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, but I believed this long before I was ever saying it
    to sell books!