Slashdot Mirror
The HP Way 2.0
theodp writes "How do you replace your Chief Pretexting Officer? HP CEO Mark Hurd announced that Joel Hyatt, an individual of 'exceptional judgment and outstanding character,' has joined HP's Board of Directors, filling one of the seats vacated during last year's boardroom scandal. Hyatt, who drew the ire of a judge over the illegal, Philadelphia-like treatment of an attorney at Hyatt's namesake law firm who was diagnosed with AIDS, was also appointed to HP's HR and Compensation Committee. Presumably, the HP womenfolk won't hold it against Hyatt that he reportedly once advocated keeping alma mater Dartmouth female-free. Hyatt acknowledged making mistakes that he's learned from, but said he was not eager to share them."
I love the fact that the only qualification you need to be on the Board of Directors at a billion-dollar company is to have once been on the Board of Directors at *another* billion dollar company. Doesn't matter if you wrecked that company, or got fired for incompetence, or were successfully prosecuted for some white-collar crime you committed while you were there.
HP deserves whatever they get. Talk about a fall from grace. HP was, at one time, one of the most important and successful and innovative technology companies in the world. Now what do they do? Sell cheap PCs and expensive ink.
Not really interested enough to read the rest of the article, but just wanted to say I don't see the problem with advocating same-sex schooling. My wife went to a women's college and I attended an all-boys high school, are there are definite advantages to it. In the high school case especially, I noticed that having the girls gone resulted in a hugely improved social atmosphere compared to middle school, with everybody pretty much getting along. At the public high school in the same town, however, kids were still vicious little bastards to each other.
Support NRA, America's oldest civil rights group.
...but if all the dirt the summary writer can find on him is a firing 20 years ago and something he wrote while he was at Dartmouth (30 years ago??), I'm inclined to think he must be a saint.
(disclaimer: I used to work at HP, a looong time ago)
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Does this mean that HP will start filling their ink-jet cartridges all the way now??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
all corporate appointments now or was this just a bit of character assassination too tempting to pass up?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
It is true that there are some curmudgeons out there - mostly associated with Good Ol' Boy networks of the ultra-rich, entitled, privilaged, and (largely) conservative elite - who wish that Dartmouth had remained an all-male institution. As a recent alum, however, I will state emphatically that they are a tiny minority of alumni and current students.
Dartmouth has been co-ed for about 35 years now. Lots of Dartmouth students ca. 1970 griped about co-education. They were in the minority even then; vocal, but a minority. In the intervening years, particularly as their own daughters reached college age, most of those have come to realize that it wasn't the end of the world - it made the College a better place.
Why does a printer driver require 435 MB of disk space (no really, you cannot install it otherwise) and take 30 minutes and a reboot to install?
This is one of those situations where a lot of higher-ups need to get the axe but of course they're not going to fire themselves. Same goes for Yahoo! with their over-AJAX-ified website overhaul.
This isn't so much an indictment of them as of the way the corporate system works.
If you aren't a sleazeball then you simply don't make it to the Board, because entire legions of sleazeballs get there long before you can through sleazing their way up the ladder or through the business grapevine.
And it's not even a level playing field with the sleazeballs on the inside track, because not only do they have the souped up engines but they also have rear-mounted machine guns to make sure you lose. (Yeah, I love mixing my metaphors.) In other words, you're actively put down by them.
And that's why pretty much all upwardly mobile managers end up being sleazeballs too. It's built into the system.
The same applies in politics, which is why the President is always the greatest sleazeball of them all, regardless of which party is in power.
That interests me for my career. How do I get in the Board of Directors at *another* billion dollar company?
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
I had a good friend once who was a huge executive at HP. She was an Australian woman whose work in areas like Hong Kong and Japan earned the company millions. When she was transferred to the main headquarters she lived across the street from us. She was (and still is) an awesome individual who I have enormous respect and admiration for.
When the HP/Compaq merger was approved, her days became numbered. They didn't even give her a pink slip directly, they transferred her over to an office in the Southwest - Tennessee or Georgia, I don't remember - and then fired her. It reminds me of the scene in The Godfather Part II when Michael kills his brother and throws him into Lake Tahoe. Afterwards they couldn't afford living in the United States - her husband had already retired - and they had to move back to Australia. She knew it was going to happen, too, it was just one big waiting game.
And since then, I've never really thought too highly of "The HP Way". The most recent issues with HP, in my own humble opinion, are no surprise to me. I think HP has become much more of an "evil empire" than either Google or Microsoft.
There was a film called Philadelphia about a successful attorney who was fired from his law firm when he was dying of AIDS in the 80s.