Given the news from Hewlett Packard today about the HP board reportedly firing CEO Leo Apotheker and replacing him with board member (and former eBay CEO) Meg Whitman, I could write a new column or take the easy way out and simply reprint my column from February 23rd predicting in some detail both events. Instead I’ll just include a link to that column since it includes 85 very entertaining reader comments that look in retrospect either brilliant or stupid.
That’s what I expect will be my epitaph: “He was either brilliant or stupid.”
If Leo in fact gets the boot today I’ll follow with a column tomorrow about Meg Whitman as HP CEO.
Hewlett Packard was different from other Silicon Valley companies and always a leader. By the time I met Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in the late 1970s they were nearing retirement but still active and I knew them, working occasionally for both men and for their respective foundations. Hewlett was the good cop and Packard was the bad cop, but both men had figured out through a steady process of evolution over four decades how to build and run a fantastic company. Those days are over. Though confirmed by this week’s HP decisions to change direction and ditch the PC business, let’s understand something: the HP I knew died many years ago.
I don’t think Leo Apotheker is going to survive long as CEO of Hewlett Packard. This is not based on any inside information, just my own pondering. And when Apotheker does go down, I’m pretty sure I know who will take his place.