OSNews

...I've seen some... "questionable" actions taken/reasons given in employee hiring and firing in my time.

Call me cynical, but isn't that what most CEO's do today?

I mean half the CEO's today have been indicted, are on other boards to facilitate massive board collusion...(i.e. Shell Oil execs on GM's Board then expecting gas efficient cars seems to be well....stupid.)

Smells fishy.

-Hack

I always knew that guy had a defective kernel.

"HP has an extremely talented executive team supported by a dedicated and customer focused work force."

How pathetic...
"customer focused work force" Well, you know, all that dirty crowd who actually doing all the work.
Yeah, it requires talent to sell the most expensive liquid on planet.

Can't they simply do their work without putting their hands on the hired help? I blame the proliferation of Viagra for this. ;-P

This is more common than you think.

Mark Hurd just got caught.

Henry Nicholas from Broadcom did much worse: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/billionaire-drug-bust

Now you know where the "profits" from many of these companies go. They don't go to re-investing into the technology in a lot of cases. They go to hiding the screwups of many C-levels, and a lot of things that shareholders never know about because they're hidden very well in the financial reports.

A lot of C-level executives treat their companies like piggy banks with their pick of sexual partners attached. This is nothing new. There are more than enough enablers and lackeys in the executive ranks that encourage this. Again, this is nothing new. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What is a potential problem for HP is that their CEO lied on his expense reports. He can be held liable for this under SOX, and therefore, can be charged and sent to jail. Anyone that helped him gets charged too.

The SEC would prosecute something like this because it makes the news and makes them look like they are doing something, and it puts the screws to a disagreeable character. Meanwhile, for every Mark Hurd, there are 1,000 other C-levels that are doing much worse, and 10,000+ people that got screwed by companies that will never get justice for their plight because the SEC will focus their best and brightest on prosecuting someone over expense reports.

Sick fucks like this try to keep their positions for 10-20 years instead of giving others the opportunity to proceed with their careers and have his position.

Made enuf monnies anyways now i can apply :S

Is this really an OSNews type topic? IMHO it ought to be in the gossip columns rather than a serious (or used to be serious) column.

Regards,
Peter

Few mention the multimillion dollar golden handshake he received. For that money they can fire me any day for whatever f@#@ng reason.
Just some points here, normally companies’ don’t fire there execs even if they are coke sniffing LSD heads. As long as money rolls and the shareholders are happy.
I think HP and press might have been a bit unfair here.
1. He was cleared of sexual harassment.
In other words we had two consenting adults here.
2. She wasn’t even an HP employee.
3. It looks like the scorned woman case and maybe not even scorned just opportunistic.

In this specific case I think the lawsuit was frivolous and opportunistic and a shame for the gender equality in the workspace. Men to are frequently victims here.
This is the reason why so many execs hire men or old ladies for assistants these days.

According to other sources, the woman, Jodie Fisher, says they never had sex. And she is sorry he lost his job. She did receive money in a settlement, but how much is anyone's guess. She and Hurd are being very tight lipped about the whole thing.