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HP Sues Hurd For Joining Oracle
CWmike writes "Hewlett-Packard is reported to be suing former CEO Mark Hurd, who was named co-president of rival Oracle on Monday. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news, and has now posted the full text of the suit on Google Docs. Among other things, it says, 'In his new positions, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP's trade secrets and confidential information to others.'"
The GNU this was going to happen.
Of course I don't know what peculiarities were in his golden parachute contract as far as how long he couldn't work for the/any competition but I doubt he didn't talk this over with some corporate lawyers at least.
In any case, if they don't like him bringing his ass(ets) over to another company, they should've kept him. Nothing much they can do about it now unless he's still under contract.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Hurd and Oracle only to find out once again it's talking about this guy. Man, he should really change his name.
Such as, maybe, giving Larry her phone number?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
That's all.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Somebody makes sure that lowly IT workers get served up with non-compete clauses in contracts, but the guy at the top didn't?
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
California has a pretty clear cut law that makes almost all non-compete clauses NULL and VOID. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Who says being corrupt doesn't pay off
Now if they can just hire Jodie Fisher for his assistant, Mark will be one happy co-prez.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
But we don't want you. Maybe you should try farming.
We may allow you to work elsewhere if you agree to a partial lobotomy or prolonged heavy LSD use.
In general, non-compete agreements are not enforceable. There are exceptions, but in this case, Hurd was fired/released and as such, non-competes are particularly egregious. The courts will have to decide, but this one is likely to work in Hurd's favor.
That's right, HP, kick Oracle where it hurds!
Be relentless!
I did the same.
I'm just surprised Oracle wanted him. From what I've heard about Hurd, he can be unstable, and isn't quite ready for daily use.
You are given the parachute in return for the non-compete clause. Therefore you are being compensated for not just getting fired and going to the competition and spilling your guts. The grace period lets your knowledge specific to the company go out of date.
This is gonna kinda be like Godzilla vs. Mothra. It doesn't matter who wins the city of Tokyo is TOAST!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Secret 1: Outsource everything.
Secret 2: Employees are interchangeable.
Secret 3: Good enough is probably too expensive.
Secret 4: There is still at least enough good will for the HP name to milk another five years.
The ______ Agenda
From what I can tell, Larry Ellison knows Mr. Hurd personally, and also Hurd's ability to not run HP into the ground during a major worldwide recession (despite his paycheck) are pretty good indicators of how he'll do at Oracle. Think of Hurd as a very well paid sales person. Think Pete Campbell from Mad Men.
moox. for a new generation.
...and decides to go to Oracle, is that considering 'following the Hurd?"
Don't fear the penguins
HP is just trying to pull a fast one. I'm sure they forced him to quit but they also cannot prevent him from obtaining employment in his field. He'll always have that information about their trade secrets. What do they want? A lifetime ban? This is just a tech companies natural flow is to prevent their execs from working for rival companies.
If you ask me, I don't think HP has a leg to stand on. Sooner or later, the courts are going to say "enough is enough" and rule that companies don't have a legal right to prevent someone from obtaining gainful employment. He's anb exec, and HP would just be restraining his efforts to find employment in a field he is qualified for.
whooosh
(Hint: Look up "Hurd")
You sign a non-compete agreement, then immediately sign up with one of the companies biggest competitors!
Either Hurd is actually a complete and utter moron or he has nads the size of Jupiter! I'm going with the latter.
Whoosh
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
GP's joke just went entirely over your head, didn't it...
That's an anachronism. No one shows loyalty to an ephemeral concept like "the American worker", except for politicians playing for votes and demagogues playing for eyeballs. Hurd hasn't shown loyalty to HP workers, this is true. By why should he have shown them loyalty? He was paid by HP shareholders to be loyal to them, not to be loyal to workers. CEOs at large companies don't depend on workers for their livelihood -- they depend on the Board of Shareholders. Why would their loyalties lie elsewhere?
What's the BoD? Bag of Dicks? And how will they suffer any consequences?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Maybe they shouldn't have fucking fired him then?
What did they think he was going to do? Start selling used hp gear on ebay?
I hope Hurd's lawyers are "vicious fucking jew lawyers" as one comedian puts it, and can tear HP a new asshole.
If you know what I mean..
Seriously, how can HP prove that Hurd shared "trade secrets" without a clear definition of what is considered an HP "trade secret"? It sounds to me like FUD unless they can cite specific examples of things that Hurd has (or somehow must in the future) disclose to Oracle. Is it completely impossible for him to do his job without disclosing "trade secrets", and can HP prove that?
Also, if HP is made to clearly define these "trade secrets", wouldn't that make them, well... not so secret anymore?
California has a pretty clear cut law that makes almost all non-compete clauses NULL and VOID.
Not quite. My understanding is that the law treats owners and the highest ranked executives differently than ordinary worker. Especially when trade secrets and other proprietary information is involved.
However even for workers the law you cite can get fuzzy. Lets say you agree to accept a payment in return for not working at a competitor for a reasonable amount of time, say a year. If you choose to take such a job you may be free to do so but you may also need to return the payment.
Right! How dare they force someone who was stealing to resign?!
I mean, I think it's stupid as shit for a guy making what Hurd was making to essentially grab a little more income that didn't amount to 1% of his take home (or more likely, not want his wife to see it on his credit card bills) to buy stuff for his mistress, but you know? I can't blame a company for not wanting to tolerate embezzlement.
This could have been different in that it may have been required to get his bonus. That sort of thing is almost always legal, since it is regular contract law. You come work for me, we have a normal employment agreement. However I say "You know, there's a lot of stuff you are privy to that I don't want getting out. So if I lay you off, I'll give you a big bonus, but in turn for that you can't go work for my competitors, you can't write an expose book, and so on."
Now of course you don't have to do agree to that, but if you don't, you don't get the bonus.
So while California may well say "You can't have a non-compete on normal employment," a termination bonus is a different thing.
California is a Right to Work State, you want to sue to prevent someone from having a job? Then move to Washington or New York.
Here in California we recognize the need for a person to earn a living plying their skill is more important than your need to treat people like property.
But hey, since those lawyers are salaried, better to use them to harass Mr. Sexual Harassment to put those payroll dollars to work am I right?
You know none of that was proven or even demonstrated, right?
It was more like a kneejerk reaction to rumor, like that Dept. of Agriculture lady firing .. Maybe they will apologize and offer him his job back, too.
Lol. Stealing..embezzlement, huh? I can only assume you were on the investigative board, right? I mean you seem to know so much and use such dramatic language.
Citation needed.
All I saw was a report of something like an inaccurate expense report. This could be as simple as mislabeling expense reports which are valid but trying to hide or shift money from one name to another to prevent notice.
You know jack shit about what actually happened.
In California, non-compete agreements have been disallowed by the courts...
That may allow him to work at Oracle, barring trade secret or proprietary information issues, but it may not allow him to keep all of his severance. I think you may be able to pay a person not to work for a competitor for a reasonable time frame. They still have the right to do so but may be required to return the payment.
Prior to any of said trade secrets being used? Good luck with that one...
Trade secrets and proprietary information can never be disclosed. Noncompete agreements may be null and void at the time of signing but nondisclosure agreements can last forever.
is it me or did they just misspell money as "monies" on page 3 paragraph #4: "Hurd was paid monies, stock and stock options"
I am sort of conflicted on this one...
On one hand, I absolutely loathe Oracle and everything they stand for. They have ruined good will on the internet as a whole, and have terrible products and service.
On the other hand, HP is wrong to try and misuse the trade secret clause to shaft Hurd. They *FIRED* him. THEY terminated his employment. You can get rid of the guy, or you can put up with him - you don't get it both ways. You don't get to dictate how he lives his life after he leaves, HP. Sorry if you're butthurt about it.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Trying to sue someone for what they might do is a huge stretch. And the idea that anyone can control a former employee is off the wall in some states. Usually one's obligations end when the pay checks stop. It's called freedom.
Most intelligent people,finding themselves at the bottom of a hole, would stop digging...
HP on the other hand, having dug themselves in pretty deep on this one already, have just hired a crew at many hundreds of dollars per hour to help them dig deeper!
I think Ellison approves of Hurd's core values.
yeah right
No, this is another Hurd, with another mascot: Sexual Harassment Panda.
He was paid by HP shareholders to be loyal to them, not to be loyal to workers.
Sometimes, for a manager, loyalty to the shareholders includes loyalty to the employees. Otherwise, shareholders lose access to valuable human resources.
Mark Hurd's success is directly tied to the amount of people he can. He's absolutely known as a hatchetman, and will do so at the drop of a hat. The problem is, it works...he doesn't care about the employees, just the board, and doing what he does best makes them very happy.
Hurd used to be the CEO for NCR when I worked for him, and he did the same thing there....from there he moved to HP, and whacked something in the ball park of 7-9k jobs right away. Nothing will make a company look profitable faster than cutting payroll.
That being said, and my overall feeling for the guy is that he is a complete douche...HP screwed up in letting him go, plain and simple. As someone mentioned, you can't have it both ways, HP.
Secondly....I've followed this story a little bit, due to my knowledge of the man, and doesn't it seem to anyone else that the whole breakup w/ arguably their most successful CEO in a very long time, went really fast and really quietly?? (relatively speaking)
I believe there was more to the story as to why he left HP...what that it is,the world may never know.
Dell should have hired Hurd, as a way to get revenge on HPQ for taking away the 3PAR deal.
I'm just surprised Oracle wanted him. From what I've heard about Hurd, he can be unstable, and isn't quite ready for daily use.
There's a kernel of truth in what you say, but I don't think that Hurd's instability should cause a panic (in Oracle investors). Combined with their previous acquisitions, Oracle may have the sparc of innovation they need for a truly UNIque offering...
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
How are Oracle and HP in competition?
Is HP afraid Oracle might start selling overpriced printer ink, or laptops?
Most CEO have very little tech knowledge. Their job is to keep the profits moving up and avoid train wrecks.
Exit agreements are negotiated before accepting a postion, not when you're going out the door. That's why it's called a "compenstaion package".
This sound more like an internal vendetta. There was no reason for him to stay. He'd already accomplished his goal of returning the company to profitability.
The excuse about unusual expenses is just that, an excuse. And Hurd never prepared his own expense reports--the guy was the CEO. Most of the time they just submit their receipts, or someone else takes care of *all* the expenses.
As the HP lawyer said, the amount had no material impact on HP.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
he thinks he still owns it.
you had me at #!
There's a limit to what they can force non-disclosure on. Otherwise, it would be a one hit wonder for so many managers and executives.
No. Trade secrets and proprietary information are off limits in perpetuity as long as the company properly identified and secured such information and continues to do so.
I think what you are getting at are the experience and general skills a person develops on the job. These are things that may be taken from job to job without restriction.
Lets say that while at HP Hurd developed personal business relationships with executives at company A. Lets say he has experience negotiating with company A. Now that he is at Oracle he is free to leverage the personal relationships and negotiating experience (what are the other sides tells, general strategies, etc), but he is not allowed to use any information he has about HP contracts or deals in his decision making process or negotiations. Due to the difficulty of doing the later courts have sometimes prohibited executives from engaging in certain activities at their new employers.
That's what it looks like HP is doing... although their concerns about disclosing trade secrets may be justified, I'm pretty sure they'd have a hard time showing, with 100% certainty, that it is wholly unavoidable that the position would require such disclosure. Even if such disclosure is merely highly probable, how can they sue for something they can't show actually happened?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Hurd responded by making a comment about HP's breasts and slapping the company on the ass.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
HP's Board may be pretend to be aggrieved, but there is little they can do. California basically bans non-compete clauses. Some lawyers will get rich, and it will all be settled out of sight.
It would be more convincing if HP weren't such d@mned hypocrits: they complain of corporate secret leakage, yet they hired in Carly Fiorio as CEO from Lucent to get networking going and Mark Furd himself from NCR. Both "closer" in market terms to HP than Oracle is.
I think the HP Bored is just unhappy Mark bounced back quickly and very vexed the market agrees with him (Oracle's stock when up, HP down). Arrogant SOBs. I'd be embarrassed to work for them. Or buy their products.
And neither do you, but that doesn't seem to stop you from whoring for him.
Where did I claim I did know exactly what happened, douchebag?
Well played, sir!
Why can't you ignorant unconvincibles ever get it right? Why does everyone ignore me? The Hurd would be nothing without us.
Yes, you are a douchbag. At least that's why I assume you put that as a question. I guess Hurd just cant afford good toadying anymore
Why do people have to post PDFs through Google Docs (or Scribd) these days? They posted the full document on their website, and you the submitter decided that the PDF reader on my computer wasn't good enough for a direct link.
Mr. Hurd has quickly found himsef at odds with Hewlet Packard and the United States of America.
Mr. Ellson needs to be quiet and out of contact with media news sources.
The actions of Mr. Hurd place himself as Enemy of the State -- Enemy of the United States of America.
Does Mr. Hurd have a death wish?
Assets are moving into position.
"Moose hunting season" is now open.
It doesn't take a Sparc of brilliance to know his "Linux" is about to be pounded in 64-bits increments.
We've seen others get hit SCO hard they felt like two Testamends would ascended them into being Unix again, but we can leave that Novelty alone in the adult book-section with the reast of the patent-trolling Traps.
I'll go now...just let me get muy...OK FINE IM GOING, KEEP IT!
California is rather unique in this regard. In other states every 7-11 manager and carwash supervisor has an employment contract that includes a noncompete. The more this airs, the more likely the rest of us are to quit putting up with that nonsense. That would be a win for the common folk.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
GNU/HURD that the Mach kernel can swap Linux out of Debian Linux in favor of Mach, and that is whah HURD intends to do once it is better than the Mach kernel.
First came GNU/HURD and it was without form and void, so RMS scraped some already-existant soil together of the prior creation into what is Debian. The spirit of POSIX dwelt to guid the mindless (uncapitalized) Debian, and so RMS punched a rock into two peices called GNU/Linux and Linux and he grafted it onto the Host to direct the main() as titulat Debian Linux. Then we are expecting a flame-war to ensure from the prissy Lilly-livered Open Soars Initiative that they want their beloved back-scratching copy-righthand away from RMS' copy-lefthand (the commonastic Poo-whiping hand of merchant warrrrr). So Debian Linux was divested of it's dependancy on either Linux and GNU/Linux, that it become self-aware only as Debian that a new crown would descend from high to be known as Mach, and ontop of that crown sits another crown called HURD, and on-top of that crown sits another crown of a big snake-eating it's own tail called Alan "little-cockasian" Cox.
And then the Beast spoke... I'ld like to Interject: I'm GNU/Debian nowwwwww!
PDFs, particularly this kind of PDF hosted on a party to a legal action's site, disappear once the matter is settled. It's rude to subject the future generations of web historians to so many blank links. Also, I heard once that Windows clients have some security issues with PDF viewers that make promotion of the filetype directly less than considerate. Third party hosting at a minimum is the responsible thing to do, and reposting through a trusted translation service is also kind.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Don't kid yourself about "goodness" Hurd did to HP. It's exactly opposite. He temporarily upped HP's share price at a huge cost of future prospects. R&D has been axed by more than half (from around 6% of revenues to a little more than 2% since 1998 - courtesy of both Mark and Carly). To defend share price HP is now pursuing some $10B buyback program (that is 4-5 times their R&D budget). Morale inside is at the rock bottom, good engineers are treated like a crap (both axing salaries and lack of professional prospects/interesting projects) and are defecting. Crooky MBAs are taking over everything, so we see more and more corruption scandals with HP involved. Now with no CEO and a big mess/scandals at highest executive levels HP's decisions will (propably) be chaotic at best.
Now, after screwing HP from inside Hurd is going to screw them from his Oracle position by using his knowledge / business relation to wrestle outsourcing contracts from HP. Good work Mark, you've taken the COTY crown ("Crook Of The Year") from Lloyd Blankfein who held this glorious title since 2008.
Is there anything they won't buy?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
(a) the jurisdiction is Oregon not California, so Hurd may well be SOL
(b) even in CA, they haven't been "disallowed", they just have to adhere to rather widely accepted guidelines (e.g. the non-compete clause must place reasonable limitations on geographical and time extents)
PLEASE don't try to convince us that you know anything at all when you don't even know the difference between a breach and breeches.
On the other hand, he is credited with saving HP. HP may have fired him, but they sure as hell aren't going to deviate from his plan for a few years at least. He quite literally saved that company. He made the cover of business week, forbes, and all those other financial mags for it, for god's sake. That's one hell of a thing to have on your resume.
Besides, though Hurd's indiscretions were serious, they were nothing compared to what he did for HP. He saved the company hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions, and brought them back from the brink of bankruptcy, but gets caught over-expensing a few thousand dollars and he has to go?
If I were Oracle I'd snatch him up too. HP was stupid for letting him go.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
So what was HP's plan to squash Sun. .vs. Sun and others. Some issues may go way back and involve Itanic .vs. Sparc .vs. PA-RISC .vs. MIPS. This is a bunch of rocks I would love to see flipped to see what slime crawls under it.
In itself that would be privileged and could not be divulged. However the Sun hardware investment made by Oracle is a big deal and needs to be maintained at a couple levels. Operationally the Sun investment is a lot like HP without printers. This makes him a perfect match to maintain that value and would need no secrets to dig into the operational issues associated with Sun and Oracle integration.
I do wonder if HP was dealing with the market in ways that were fully legal in terms of HP
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Wasn't Hurd known for ruthless layoffs and massive salary cuts while giving himself huge bonuses? Is there a patent on that? I'm sure we can find prior art. -- J. "The Ripper" Welch
...GNU Hurd joined Oracle? WTF is that supposed to mean?