HP fires CEO, hires Meg Whitman

techweenie · techweenie's Garage

In less than a year, Leo Apotheker presided over a very confused HP, which has lost 1.2 billion in value. His reward: $25 million exit package.

Meg Whitman looks to me to be another in a series of bad decisions. Her last 4 years at eBay were pretty much a disaster. But could anyone do worse than the last couple HP CEOs?

masraum · 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by techweenie

But could anyone do worse than the last couple HP CEOs?

I'd happily give it a shot. I'll do the job for $200k with the option of a $25mil parachute if they don't like me.

On a related note, I just ordered an HP Touchsmart PC. It's scheduled to ship on the 26th. Core i5 quad core processor @ 3.1GHz, 6 Gig RAM, 1.5TB HD, BluRay with DVD burn capabilities, Win 7 64bit Premium, built in 10/100/1000 and WiFi N capable. All of that is built into a 23" touchscreen monitor. I don't actually care about the touchscreen, but the non-touchscreen models were lower end with smaller displays, lower end processors, etc....

The wife will be very happy to not have the main case and extra cables cluttering up the room that the computer is in. I think it's a great design (the all in one thing) if you aren't going to do much tinkering.

techweenie · techweenie's Garage

Me too, but I think that line is pretty long...

EarlyPorsche · 09-22-2011, 03:40 PM

Meg Whitman isn't a spectacular leader - quite the contrary according to the track record I am aware of. It seems like the old escalator theory - once you're on the escalator you keep going on it. Her name is in the hat and she'll likely be picked for top positions going forward.

jyl · jyl's Garage

EBAY is a very different business from HPQ.

techweenie · techweenie's Garage

Whitman has been on the board, so was 'on board' with dumping the tablets and the plans to spin off the PCs. So since she is initially saying she's doing what Apotheker had planned, not sure we're going to see any short term benefits.

When I lived in Silicon Valley, HP was the symbol of local pride. The original 'started in a garage' tech giant.

jyl · jyl's Garage

The board at HPQ has made awful decisions. Firing Hurd. Hiring Apoteker. Buying Autonomy. Wasting $1BN on Palm. Crippling the PC biz by putting it on the chopping block with no buyer. I don't think anyone on the board should be CEO of HPQ. Rewarding failure. Even if Whitman were not on the board, she shouldn't be the choice. Can you think of an easier CEO job than running EBAY in the early years? With the network effects, then the bubble pop gutting competing startups? When EBAY ran into its limits, she started not looking so good . . . And was fired (CEOs don't actually "resign" or "retire"). So they fired the best CEO the company had in decades, hired a guy who'd been fired from SAP (not an easy thing to manage), now hired a gal who'd been fired from EBAY. Let me guess. Sometime in her first 6 months, she is going to decide that profits and stock price will go up if she cuts 20K heads in the US.

Edit: Wait, I just realized, if she still has political ambitions, then she would not want to axe a ton of US jobs. Which would be bad for shareholders. I wonder if the Board has figured out how to resolve this conflict of interest?