
Meg Whitman to be named new HP CEO - raheemm
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/technology/whitman-expected-to-be-named-at-hp.html?hp
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plinkplonk
I am just a dumb developer, so I am probably not quite getting the subtle
management logic at play here, but what's with random incompetents being
appointed CEOs and paid millions of dollars to make things worse or at least
not much better? (Bartz at yahoo, Apotheker at HP)It seems like a systemic
inefficiency to me. (btw this is a genuine question, not snark. I'd appreciate
anyone versed in how boards etc work enlightening me)

On that note aren't the legions of VPs that infest such companies supposed to
be a "bench" for selecting a CEO from in an emergency? If you have half a
hundred (or more!) VPs and none of them can step up and be CEO in troubled
times, why pay _them_ millions of dollars?

Also, why exactly Meg Whitman? Just because she happened to be available and
doesn't have another job? (Isn't that telling about her desirability as a
CEO?) How long before they look far yet another saviour on a white horse?

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blackguardx
I was with you until you mentioned Bartz as an example. She was actually
really good as the head of Autodesk. Yahoo has languished, but at least she
didn't make any company killing decisions like Fiorina or Apotheker.

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slantyyz
I wonder how hamstrung Bartz was by the board of Yahoo, and perhaps the
culture of Yahoo itself.

I don't have any knowledge of Bartz's experience at Yahoo, but I can
definitely say that it's very hard to make systemic changes when you're not
given the tools to do so.

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brianbreslin
All the reports seem to indicate it was a culture thing that caused tons of
infighting and excess bloat in the ranks. People would have 6 different bosses
on a project or no one knew who was responsible for anything. This is what
I've gathered from all the blogs.

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seldo
What do people think of Meg Whitman's record at eBay? She ran for governor on
her record as CEO there, but eBay has always seemed to me like a terribly-led
company, sitting on its laurels as first-mover and squandering opportunities
to move into new markets while startups chip away at its core business.

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drzaiusapelord
The site is such a 90s throwback. I love getting emails to pay my ebay bill
with instructions like "visit the site, login here, click there, then click
here, and finally click here." Err, is generating a URL straight to payment
such a problem?

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whichdan
I wonder whether this is poor design, or due to the large amount of phishing
attempts?

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drzaiusapelord
Considering ebay sends me other marketing emails with links in them, I'm not
sure if its anti-phishing. Ive already been trained to click on ebay links.

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jfruh
"While Mr. Apotheker is going, his strategy, including consideration of
spinning off H.P.’s personal computer business from other parts of the
company, will remain in place."

ha ha ha WHAT

"OK, let's hire this enterprise software guy, then get mad when he
restructures the company around enterprise software, then fire him but make
his successor implement the plan the enterprise software guy put together!
Can't fail!"

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roc
The board wouldn't have _hired_ Apotheker in the first place if they didn't
approve of the direction he was going to take HP.

I would guess that his firing, is due more to the way he went about it [1] and
his overpaying for Autonomy.

[1] That is: going public with the general plan too far in advance of having
the details ironed out. Which arguably did real damage to the hardware
division's sales and the process of trying to find a buyer for it.

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dereg
Do you seriously think that the Autonomy purchase was made autonomously from
board approval? (no pun intended)

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roc
No. But I think that price would have strained Leo's support such that the
later misstep regarding the spin-off could push them over the fence.

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kenjackson
This seems like an all up bad move. I don't think I've seen a string of worse
CEO positions than HP. The Microsoft board is probably looking around and
saying, "We could be doing a worse job".

I wonder if they could get Bob Muglia onboard. That would actually be a good
fit for this role.

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arach
I think the notion that a company such as HP could be led by someone who is
not irrefutably passionate about technology is flawed.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Whitman> Nothing about her bio suggests any
sincere interest in technology.

I think this line is interesting "She believed the site to be confusing and
began by building a new executive team.", and indicative of how she could
bring a new level of suck to HP.

"Whitman organized the company by splitting it into twenty-three business
categories. She then assigned executives to each, including some 35,000
subcategories." I might short HP.

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jfb
The idea that HP is a technology company is sadly out of date.

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trotsky
It seems more than any one specific CEO, the HP board has proven itself unfit
to oversee the company. It's not incomprehensible that the best thing they
could do for shareholder value _and_ to protect their employees jobs would be
breaking HP up and finding buyers. After all, aside from the earnings
shortfalls all the big picture problems the market has with Apotheker have all
been board approved.

Perhaps Ellison wasn't just blowing smoke when he said "The HP board just made
the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple (AAPL.O) board
fired Steve Jobs many years ago" about Hurd.

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brk
I was going to write a longer post, but it can be summarized as this: They're
Fucked.

Nothing against Meg, but she has never been a visionary of any sort. HP is so
terribly lost that they need the reincarnation of Hewlett + Packard + Jobs in
a single person that can work 80 hour days for about 10 years.

HP has fallen to the "used to be great" category and now we are going to watch
the corpse slowly rot.

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Apple-Guy
Agree. Announcing abandoning products weeks after release, and selling off its
primary business without a buyer, and then this. They show they are running
out of ideas. Maybe the board needs to get fired too.

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moonlighter
HP's name of the game seems to be "One step forward, two steps back". Over and
over. They are SO lost...

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eatm0rewaffles
Ebay to hp next thing you know she'll be running for governor...

Those two business models couldn't be more different.

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antidaily
Maybe Microsoft can get her to buy Skype.

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Uchikoma
Well eBay made a lot of money from buying and selling Skype.

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jfb
When the wheels come off a cart as big as HP, it's pretty awe-inspiring. I
wonder who's next? Certainly Dell isn't going to get anywhere becoming a
"services" company. Too, how many "services" companies does the world really
need?

Rhetorical question, I suppose.

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ahi
I suspect it's directly correlated with the number of golf courses.

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jfb
I didn't do a literature search, but you are almost certainly correct.

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cHalgan
I wonder why there are no internal talent in HP to replace CEO (you know, the
second in command which will take control of the ship if CEO is hit by a bus).

Is there a company which is actively working on internal talent pool capable
of replacing the acting CEO? (I can think only of Apple, but they are not
typical corporation).

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jpdoctor
HP: Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

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scarmig
Well, the least you can say is she won't be as bad as Carly.

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chugger
I'd choose Todd Bradley over Meg Whitman

[http://www8.hp.com/us/en/company-information/executive-
team/...](http://www8.hp.com/us/en/company-information/executive-
team/bradley.html)

Executive Vice President, Personal Systems Group

He's had success running HP’s Personal Systems Group, he's a proven leader, he
knows the company, he's technology-oriented, etc.

 _Under Bradley’s leadership, PSG has firmly established HP as the No. 1 PC
vendor in the world. During his six-year tenure, the business has added more
than $10 billion in revenues and increased profitability threefold.

Prior to joining HP, Bradley was the chief executive officer of Palm. Before
that, Bradley was executive vice president of global operations for Gateway._

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vicparekh
Meg is a really bad choice...

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jemfinch
Can you explain why?

(Otherwise it boggles my mind that you created an account solely for this
post...)

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0x12
I don't know what his reason is, my reason for thinking she is a bad choice is
that she has no experience running a hardware company.

