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."

Comments

Question:

[Pojut]

Does anyone know if there is hard evidence (heh) proving this guy's guilt? It would be a real shame for this to be a false accusation that destroys a man's career...

Re:Question:

[mandark1967]

My understanding, though I've not read about the case in depth, is that he was accused, he admitted to it, and the accuser had already worked out a resolution, then the crap hit the fan, so to speak.

Re:Question:

[TrisexualPuppy]

According to one of my old classmates who works at HP, they've either been keeping everything really quiet, or there is no evidence. He is betting on the latter. This may just be a case of slander/libel. It does not take much for a woman to accuse a man of a crime that he did not commit and get him into heaps of trouble for it.

Happened to me in the 90s and on a much smaller scale. I was accused of groping a woman, and when the cop arrived, she couldn't even keep her story straight. The cop tried to convince her how to best make up her story in front of my face. I was arrested. When we went to court, I provided microcassette audio and a transcript of what had happened. Cop was fired, and they tried the woman for perjury. Still made my life a nightmare.

Re:Question:

[elrous0]

More common than most people realize. And thanks to feminists running around claiming that no woman has ever lied about being raped or sexually harassed, there is pretty much a presumption of guilt now for any such accusation, even if it's in the midst of a nasty divorce/custody case or if the victim has a clear financial gain in making an accusation. Just look at how those poor bastards in the Duke Lacrosse case were publicly crucified by the likes of Gloria Alred and Nancy Grace (who never even had the decency to apologize after the case fell apart). Without decent attorneys, those guys would probably be in prison now (instead of the piece-of-shit prosecutor who railroaded them for his own political gain).

Re:Question:

[nedlohs]

Today you'd get thrown in jail for making that recording.

Re:Question:

[Mongoose Disciple]

To be fair, at one point it was pretty standard to put the accuser in a case like that more on trial than the accused.

Things have swung too far in the opposite direction, now, but you have to understand these things in context -- society's trying to find an appropriate equilibrium.

Re:Question:

[mlts]

Society never finds equilibrium. It merely heads to the state with the lowest energy and the highest entropy.

Re:Question:

[mark72005]

Exactly - there's always a presumption of guilt for the man.

I'd hate to be a celebrity or some kind of professional athlete in this respect. You would think they'd all be afraid to talk with strangers in public or date women innocently, for fear of those people all looking for a payday any way they could get it.

Re:Question:

[elrous0]

I'm not talking about the Islamic world, I'm talking about the modern world. I'm sure you can find numerous references to Muslims claiming that Jinns have possessed their goats to produce bad milk too. That hardly makes the comments of those hillbilly Koran-thumpers mainstream.

But if you can produce mainstream commentators (and not just nutcases on message boards or tin-foil-hat blogs shooting their mouths off in anonymity) in the western world saying any such thing, then knock yourself out. The only time I've ever heard the SLIGHTEST criticism of an accuser was in the Duke case (and that only came much later, after it became abundantly clear she was a complete nutcase) and in the Kobe Bryant case (and only because there were some very suspicious circumstances there, and even then it was mostly only pro-Kobe fans and sports writers that dared questioned her story).

Re:Question:

[PitaBred]

Depends on the state. I'd get out of Massachusetts while the getting was good.

Re:Question:

[Your.Master]

The Islamic world wasn't the whole of his examples, just an afterthought thrown in there.

Look at any Digg story about rape. Or any article that drifts into whether abortion should be legal in cases of rape.

Then there are stories like this http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10211/1076338-455.stm where every mention of rape is assumed to actually be consensual sex (in other words, she asked for it).

Or these pamphlets that aim to spread the message everywhere http://jezebel.com/5482688/you-make-men-want-to-be-sinful-blaming-the-victim-religious-pamphlet-edition

Or http://jezebel.com/5478360/she-knew-what-would-happen-if-she-started-drinking-blaming-the-victim-princeton-edition

This shows that it isn't just a small nutball collective: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1251040/Rape-Its-fault-victims-say-50-women.html?ITO=1490&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+dailymail/home+(Home+|+Mail+Online)

The boys aren't to blame because she drank a bit: http://current.com/1db6i4c

Here's what rapists think about it: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/04/15/why-dont-we-accept-victim-blaming-from-rapists/

There are a whole host of weirder cases, too, that imply that rape victims actually gave consent. Remember how Whoopi Goldberg ranting about how Roman Polanski's drugging and raping an unconscious child wasn't really rape? I'm not sure what she was getting at, but if it wasn't rape then it stands to reason that Whoopi thought something about the unconscious, drugged girl gave consent to Polanski.

But if you can produce mainstream commentators...

You are moving goalposts and putting them someplace strange and unnecessary. This isn't about political commentators blaming the victim, it's about members of the public blaming the victim, all the time. Fair enough that you can find a lone person with an insane definition of anything, but this is hardly a rare viewpoint.

Re:Question:

[the phantom]

Actually, a drunk man who has sex with a sober woman could press rape charges. However, this assumes that (a) upon waking, the man feels that he has been wronged and (b) the man actually chooses to press rape charges. We live in a society that assumes that men want to have sex with women, no matter their state of mind, and that further presumes that a man cannot be raped by a woman, and any man that does make such a claim is a pussy. So it is understandable that so few cases are prosecuted.

Re:Question:

[Hatta]

To be fair, at one point it was pretty standard to put the accuser in a case like that more on trial than the accused.

What's wrong with that? If you're talking about depriving a man of several years, if not decades, of his life, potentially subjecting him to rape in prison, and branding him for life after his release, shouldn't we be damn sure the accuser has their story straight?

Re:Question:

[frosty_tsm]

All good points, but what about the 3rd case where neither are able to give consent? Does the lack of ability to give consent mean they also aren't capable of seeing consent can't be given by the other? When both were drunk, can a man counter-charge rape on the girl if the girl charges rape against him?

Philosophically, this is a more interesting scenario.

Re:Question:

[frosty_tsm]

If the criteria is the woman is near or completely unconscious, your points are dead on.

But that's not the criteria discussed back when I was on campus. It was about drunk, conscious, girls that may or may not have been acting flirty but were considered unable to give consent.

So knowing that guys were accused and charged at this level of intoxication, the scenario stands as relevant.

Re:Question:

[falsified]

Mississippi?

Harassment...

[grub]

No stranger himself to sexual harassment allegations, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison

I heard Larry Ellison keeps the sexual harassment forms in the bottom drawer of his desk. That way when a woman goes to get one he can check out her ass.

.

Obvious

[Sockatume]

With so many senior tech company staff quitting or being fired in the past few weeks, I must conclude that there is a connection. The Earth is doomed, and these individuals have been chosen to be part of the secret task-force designing the space craft that will whisk the rich and influential away to live on another planet.

Larry's statement - without logging in.

[(H)elix1]

Be nice to find another news source - like this one where a login was not needed.

"In losing Mark Hurd, the H-P board failed to act in the best interest of H.P.'s employees, shareholders, customers and partners," Ellison wrote in an email to The New York Times, which posted excerpts of the email late Monday. "The H-P board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false."

Violated policy

[glittermage]

Mark violated other company policies and chose the better path. There are many other people who can fill the shoes of the CEO at HP. Mark's departure strengthened the HP brand and that is very valuable.

Re:Violated policy

[cgenman]

HP has been headed by complete imbeciles for years now. The legendarily bad Carly was just the first headliner.

I'm not too close to his work, but Mark Hurd was actually the first HP CEO in years that didn't seem to be a completely vacuous idiot. By not immediately firing every engineer and outsourcing design to wikipedia, Mark Hurd was the best HP CEO since the 90's. He seemed like he wanted to lead a business that actually made things. It was shocking.

While there are many people that can competently fill the shoes of the CEO at HP, if history is any indication the board will elect Mister Bean.

"a profound lack of judgment"

[blind biker]

Is this how "corruption on a massive scale" is spelled, nowadays?

GNU/

[wcoenen]

How many times do we have to say it people? It's GNU/Hurd!

She didn't want him fired

[zstlaw]

Part of the scandal that she didn't want him fired as he had already settled the harassment charges with her. The pictures I saw showed very attractive actress back in her 30s (she is 50 now). She was hired for marketing and networking. ("HP paid her up to $5,000 per event to greet people and make introductions among executives")

She reported unwanted advances and that uncovered a forged dinner reimbursement with her that was why he was ousted. (He probably was with another woman but claimed it was her so he could get dinner reimbursed.) She says she was "surprised and saddened" that Hurd lost his job. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38611219/ns/business-us_business/

Yes

[snowwrestler]

He was not fired for the sexual harassment stuff. In fact he was cleared of violating HP's policy and he settled the suit out of court. Both he and woman have confirmed that they did not have a sexual relationship.

He was fired for filing inaccurate expense reports totalling about $20,000. Basically he concealed the fact that he was expensing meetings with this woman. HP has stated that they do have clear evidence of that, and that Hurd admitted it and offered to repay the $20k. Instead they fired him.

He was a superstar manager. If HP's financial performance suffers without Hurd, they could lose tens of billions of dollars in market cap. If that happens I have to think that investors are going to question whether that $20k was worth it.

Re:Yes

[s.d.]

He was a superstar manager. If HP's financial performance suffers without Hurd, they could lose tens of billions of dollars in market cap. If that happens I have to think that investors are going to question whether that $20k was worth it.

I don't disagree that he has been an amazing manager at HP, helping to turn things around after the mess that was Carly Fiorina.

However, how much corruption is too much to overlook? Where do you draw that line? He falsified records to get expenses paid out to himself and/or this woman for $20k, and when caught red-handed, offered to pay it back. Ok, but what if he wasn't caught? Would he have kept doing it? Would he have done it with some other woman? What happens if he wasn't caught until the total was in the millions? Would that have still been ok, because a couple million is still less than tens of billions in market cap?

What is the value of corporate officers acting honestly no matter what?

Re:Yes

[grasshoppa]

This is business, not government. In business, you perform a cost analysis, with the risks and potential benefits.

Morality, ethics don't really enter in to the question unless it becomes a PR and marketing issue.

Hurd was doing a great job for the company, and yes he fucked up. However, I believe someone used this situation as a cover for their own personal agenda.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in cases like this you don't. There isn't any leeway, especially at the top. Hell, I am not even close to the top but would be fired if I falsified even $150 on an expense report. We have to take anti-corruption training every year or two, including things like this and more gray-area ones like accepting tickets to sporting events from vendors, etc. They make it clear that there is no exception - you violate the policy and you are out. You can't really expect LESS from the executives. They have to be the ones that show what is acceptable. Once you have proof that one of them did wrong - keeping them with a "mea culpa" and a remuneration just isn't going to fly. It tells the workers that the company has no compunction against corruption and if you get caught it is OK - just pay it back. In fact, these execs can't even truthfully fill out their SOX compliance stuff if they know this is going on.

Re:Yes

[OnlineAlias]

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.

Re:Yes

[timeOday]

Allowing the CEO to remain after getting caught stealing from the company would be incredibly demoralizing to everybody else working there. The corporate culture would be equal parts cynicism and kleptomania.

Re:Yes

[elrous0]

Amen. Boards overlook much bigger CEO infractions than this all the time. Someone (or, more likely, more than one) on the board wanted him gone for other reasons. This was just the formal legal CYA reason. The *real* truth may or may not ever come out.

Re:Yes

[scot4875]

So no, I don't give a shit of the POTUS takes an emergency pee break in the farmer's field. I give a shit if the punk in his 20s pisses in my cola at the fast food restaurant.

<blinks>

So ... I'm unclear on this. What are your feelings about the POTUS taking an emergency pee break in your cola at the fast food restaurant?

--Jeremy

not even close to the worst

[waddgodd]

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.

Why so surprised?

[moosesocks]

'The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago,'

I'm surprised Ellision is surprised. The HP board is no stranger to godawful personnel decisions.

He was fired for lying and stealing.

[thesandbender]

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.

Well, if Larry backs him...

[frank_adrian314159]

If Larry Ellison backs Hurd then he must be his kind of scum - fearless and inventive. Takes one to know one.

Surprised?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Really, is anyone surprised that this is Larry Ellison's reaction? (Regardless of the actual details of the allegations or truth of them.)

He's the kind of guy (the bit about him in the Washington Post article linked in TFA speaks to this somewhat, if you're not familiar) who thinks of executives as a kind of new aristocracy, able to do whatever they want and sleep with whichever female employees they want without limit or accountability.

People rag on the quirks tech CEOs like Ballmer and Jobs (and some of it's deserved and/or funny), but Ellison is a honest-to-god king of the douchebags.

Re:Sexual harassment

[dwye]

No, it is civil, not criminal, matter, unless it was actual assault or rape (not the case, here). Since Hurd and the lady settled the matter privately, it is no court's business.

FTFY

[RingDev]

Does anyone know if there is hard evidence (heh) proving this guy's guilt? It would be a real shame for this to be a false accusation that gives this man $12 million in cash and $30 to 40 million in stock options...

-Rick

Flamebait mod

[elrous0]

See, you can't even point it out without getting a flamebait mod.

Re:Flamebait mod

[Anonymous Coward]

You were modded flamebait because of the fucking ridiculous strawman you threw up about feminists "running around" "claiming that no woman has ever lied" which is obviously a shrill histrionic fantasy. If you want to make a point, childish exaggeration doesn't help, it gets you modded as flamebait.

Re:Flamebait mod

[M. Baranczak]

That's "ridiculous strawperson".

Re:Flamebait mod

[elrous0]

rape wasn't even really taken seriously until the last 50 years?

Bullshit. Rape has been a hanging/death penalty/imprisonment level offense in the west for a very long time now. The only difference is that before the Enlightenment it was viewed as more a crime against a husband or father than a crime against the woman herself. In the early 20th century in the U.S., a woman's accusation of rape could and would get you very much killed very quickly (if you were lucky, they wouldn't burn you alive or torture you first), especially if you were black or an outsider.

$20k is a much bigger deal than it seems

[sirwired]

The firing wasn't about the amount of the falsification. $20k is indeed chump change for a bazillion-dollar executive. But once you let the CEO get away with blatantly falsifying expense accounts, you've now made theft from the company an acceptable practice. How do you now justify firing an employee for the same thing? Why is it okay for a CEO to steal $20k, but not okay for a peon to do the same? Condoning this behavior is simply not the right thing to do, and can trigger long-term problems with morale and the company culture which can lead to massive losses (and possibly company failure) years down the road.

I'd say there is a 100% chance that any peon that stole $20k would be escorted out of the building by security (and isn't going to receive any cushy severance package either) and possibly brought up on charges.

I applaud HP's board for doing the right thing here and demonstrating the executives are held to the same ethical rules as front-line employees. Yes, it hurt. Yes, Hurd was an otherwise-excellent CEO. Yes, this has cost a lot of short-term pain to the stock price. But some things just aren't right, and churning up $20k in fraudulent expense accounts is one of them. (Wiretapping journalists to find out their sources is another, which HP found out the hard way.) I think HP will be a stronger company down the road as a result.

SirWired

Re:$20k is a much bigger deal than it seems

[radtea]

Why is it okay for a CEO to steal $20k, but not okay for a peon to do the same?

For the same reason it is okay for a large failed business to recieve billions in taxpayer support under the Bush/Obama bailout plan but not okay for anyone with an underwater mortgage to walk away from it.

One law for the ultra-rich, one law for the rest. Welcome to America.

Larry Ellison is the last CEO I would ask...

[sirwired]

Larry Ellison runs Oracle like his own personal fiefdom. He's very good at what he does, but he's the last person on earth I'd ask for advice on executive boundaries. His attitude fits in very well with Oracle's corporate culture (which he built.) It would be a disaster for HP.

Oracle's board would never fire him for such a thing (could they even do so?), but HP's board was quite right in tossing Hurd to the curb.

HP's board made a tough choice, but in the end, I think it will have proven to be the correct one.

SirWired

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This is insightful?

[sean.peters]

And thanks to feminists running around claiming that no woman has ever lied about being raped or sexually harassed

[Citation needed]. Please, do tell. Quote me a "feminist" who's running around claiming that no woman has ever lied about this sort of thing. That's all right, I'll wait.

there is pretty much a presumption of guilt now for any such accusation,

This is hardly limited to sexual harassment/rape cases - most people reflexively think that people accused of ANYTHING are probably guilty. There's a reason why grand jury proceedings are secret.

The real reason:

[lotho brandybuck]

High priced party consultant: $20k

Severance Pay: $40M Not having to live through the consequences of accidently buying a behind the curve smartphone manufacturer, and having your CEO buddies think you were booted for sexy stuff: Priceless.

Mark Hurd is Irrelevant - The Challenge for HP

[Bruce Perens]

Mark Hurd's silly exit has little to do with HP's real problems. As an executive there about a decade ago, I saw a company that was giving up its differentiating value in the name of operational savings, not realizing that by now the Golden Goose of creativity would find greener pastures. But surprisingly, the classic HP tradition of building a great place to do engineering that results in a flood of excellent creative products is being followed...

Read the rest of the posting.

I know what he should have said

[NotSoHeavyD3]

He should have said that he thought this was the worst train of thought since his crazy idea of network computers replacing desktops in the mid 90's.