hurd

Steve Jobs tried to help Mark Hurd regain his job, says report

A fascinating nugget turns up in BloombergBusinessweek's excellent piece on Hewlett-Packard: None other than Steve Jobs reached out to offer counseling to Mark Hurd after Hurd had walked away from his job as HP's CEO.

Three days after he'd resigned as CEO under pressure from the company's board of directors, Hurd received an e-mail from Steve Jobs. The Apple founder wanted to know if Hurd needed someone to talk to. Jobs had lived through a similar experience decades earlier when Apple's board turned on him, an analogy Hurd and Jobs's mutual friend and Oracle … Read more

Why Best Buy CEO's 'expressed affection' for employee was problem

commentary Brian Dunn gave Best Buy's board of directors plenty of reason to doubt that he was the man to engineer the company's comeback.

Dunn, 52, who resigned as CEO of the struggling electronics chain last month while the company was investigating his "alleged misconduct," was taken down by an "inappropriate relationship" with a 29-year-old female employee. That was the finding of investigators who were hired to look into the relationship and Best Buy released their report today.

The four-page audit included details about Dunn loaning the woman money, giving her use of a … Read more

Here's the letter Mark Hurd didn't want you to see

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd made repeated sexual overtures--including kisses and inappropriate touching--according to the woman whose sexual harassment allegations led to Hurd's ouster.

The eight-page letter (see below), which was the subject of much contention, was written to Hurd by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred on behalf of Jodie Fisher, a former salesperson and one-time actress who accused the HP chief of trying to initiate an affair over a two-year period.

Hurd lost his battle to keep the letter confidential yesterday when a Delaware court ruled that Hurd had not established "good cause" to keep the letter … Read more

Former HP CEO Mark Hurd loses appeal to keep letter sealed

Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard's former CEO and now the current president of Oracle, lost his fight in court this week to keep confidential a letter alleging sexual harassment.

A Delaware court ruled yesterday that Hurd had not established "good cause" to keep the letter under wraps. (Here's the court record uploaded by All Things Digital's Arik Hesseldahl.)

The letter in question is from lawyers representing Jodie Fisher, a sometime actress who worked as a contractor for HP to its board of directors. In the letter, she accuses Hurd of harassment that occurred from 2007 to 2009. … Read more

Oracle says HP committed fraud with Hurd settlement

In a new court filing, Oracle accused Hewlett-Packard of committing fraud by hiding its plans to hire Leo Apotheker as CEO and Ray Lane as chairman at the time the two companies were working on a settlement agreement to bring former HP CEO Mark Hurd to Oracle.

The complaint, which was filed today in San Jose, Calif., asks a Santa Clara County judge to revoke the settlement the two companies made in September of last year, saying Oracle would have never agreed to it if it had known that HP was "actively concealing material information."

That information was … Read more

HP's Carly Fiorina era is finally over...good riddance

commentary Walter Hewlett was right.

Walter Hewlett, you may remember, was the low-key, cello-playing scion of the Hewlett family who fought HP's then-CEO, Carly Fiorina, over her planned $25 billion merger with Compaq, which was announced 10 years ago next month.

Hewlett's point was simple: Just maybe it's a really bad idea to double down on a low-margin business like PCs.

Of course, we all know what happened. Hewlett's opposition was no match for the publicity-savvy Fiorina and her team of brass-knuckled marketers, who seemed a better fit for politics than the high-tech industry. (Which explains … Read more

Report: HP chairman says former CEOs 'stifled innovation'

Hewlett-Packard's former CEOs did not invest enough, gutting innovation at the world's largest PC maker, according to a Reuters interview with chairman Ray Lane.

HP's current CEO Leo Apotheker is paying for those mistakes, said Lane in the interview published yesterday.

"Mark Hurd did not invest," said Lane. "He burned the furniture to please Wall Street." The "serial cost-cutting" began with former CEO Carly Fiorina and continued with Mark Hurd, who succeeded Fiorina. This should change under Apotheker, according to Lane. "Leo is not that," Lane said, adding that … Read more

HP suing former exec over theft of trade secrets

In a case that echos of its turmoil with ex-CEO Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard is suing a former executive, claiming he stole trade secrets before jumping ship to Oracle.

In the lawsuit filed yesterday, HP alleges that Adrian Jones, the former head of enterprise sales in the company's Asian division, copied proprietary documents and e-mails about HP product information onto a USB device, according to Reuters.

In a further twist to the case, HP said it was going to fire Jones after it learned that he had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, had set up a large pay increase … Read more

Judge orders HP to release letter that started Hurd probe

Finally, the public will be able to read the letter that cost Mark Hurd his job. A judge in the Delaware Chancery Court hearing a shareholder lawsuit ruled that the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard hadn't made a strong enough case for why the letter should be kept secret, as he argued in December.

"Whether or not to seal a document allegedly containing confidential information does not turn on whether its disclosure would cause embarrassment," Judge Donald Parsons Jr. wrote in his opinion.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are seeking records related to Hurd's departure from HP in … Read more