HP is the tech company with a continuing back-story. By now, if you have read any of my prior posts, you would see there is so much inner-company turbulence one wonders if they have an executable business plan.
Here’s a sample excerpt from an interesting article by Jean-Louis Gassée,
“Turnaround Artist Manual – Chapter 1: Walk in with a frown; blame your predecessor; slash projects, budgets, people; lower expectations, loudly; and write-off assets.”
“When you’re finished, any progress will be attributed to your decisive surgery and skill at the helm. You reap the benefits of a statistical illusion: Cut something by 50%, use time, work, and a little bit of luck to bring it back to its pre-surgery size, and you’re a miracle worker! 100% growth!”
“Mike Lynch (Autonomy’s Founder) is a Larry Ellison-grade adversary: intelligent, articulate, aggressively entrepreneurial, with a willingness to create a reality distortion field around his company and an unwillingness to back down.”
It appears those more familiar with HP than I have taken notice of their leadership issues. I hope HP finds traction and can move forward and not become another DEC or UNISYS.
Related articles
- Whitman: One Write-Off Too Far (mondaynote.com)
- I believe in innovation except in accounting , say Autonomy’s Mike Lynch (telegraph.co.uk)
- HP Autonomy writedown: who’s who (guardian.co.uk)
- HP-Autonomy fraud allegations fallout: The winners and losers (techworld.com.au)
