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Larry Ellison Rips HP Board a New One
theodp writes "No stranger himself to sexual harassment allegations, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has denounced HP's directors for forcing the resignation of HP CEO Mark Hurd. 'The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago,' Ellison wrote. For now, it seems that Rupert Murdoch is also standing by Hurd, who sits on News Corp's Board of Directors and its Corporate Governance Committee. Less likely to survive the scandal is Hurd's relationship with HP General Counsel Mike Holston, who accepted Hurd's signed separation agreement after leading an investigation into Hurd's actions, which Holston told the NY Times 'showed a profound lack of judgment.' Quite a change from just last year, when Hurd and Holston teamed up to get their daughters' elite prep school a state-of-the-art HP Data Center."
This is the board that hired Carly, setting a new standard for "worst personnel decision". Compared to that, this doesn't even make a blip on the radar.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Everyone is focusing on the sexual aspects of this. If you read through HP's statements, they fired him because he falsified expense reports (lied) so he could give money to the woman involved for *consulting* services that appeared to have either never been performed or were done so poorly as to be worthless (stole).
HP canned his butt for stealing, plan and simple. It would be idiotic to keep a thief on as your CEO, especially in this political, companies are the root of all evil climate. HP's board did their job in this case.
People simply do not understand things at the top of the political/business world. None of this was about what he did, falsified what, or expensed whatever. This was about someone else wanting him out. Someone powerful wants the job, or doesn't like the guy, period.
People at this level are in constant competition with others to keep their jobs, and have to force others out. If you make yourself politically weak by doing some jackoff thing like this, it makes it easier to take you out. Here, someone did. They managed to overlook the data center for his kids school, for chrissake. He just had more juice at that time.