Hurd to take $950,000 salary after Oracle pay cut Mark Hurd will take a 25 per cent pay cut to work for Larry Ellison — if HP fails in its legal maneuver to block the Oracle CEO's audacious hire. Ellison has offered HP's former chief a salary of $950,000 as an Oracle president and board member — stratospheric by mortal standards, but down from Hurd's $1.27m take at HP. Hurd …
Hurd and his predecessor Carly Fiorina were overpaid.
The brought no value to HP and left the company poorer than when they came.
Hurd and Fiorina are regrettably typical of American management these days.
Get into a company using your network, cut and outsource while collecting obscene remuneration, and when the company starts to sink from the brain drain out the bottom and money drain out the top, repeat as necessary.
Oracle stock holders, you have been warned.
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... can HP still make a laptop that actually works without dropping the WiFi connection every minute or so, whether it's running Windows OR Ubuntu? Or that doesn't require constant jiggling of the A/C connector? Not so far as I can tell.
I'm highly doubtful that HP still has any trade secrets that Snoracle would find useful, and legal questions notwithstanding, that alone should be his "defense".
Still, I'd be well more than happy working anywhere, doing just about anything for $95K. There's that whole extra zero there that just isn't necessary to purchase my happiness.
The additional zero would however provide me with great amusement. Just think what I could do with that money. Buy an old Volkswagen Beetle, paint it hot pink and bolt it sideways to the exterior wall of my workplace. Fill the houses of certain individuals with packing peanuts. (After ensuing they have no pets and no one is home, natch.) Buy a round for each and every one of my mates here on El Reg.
Seriously though, I’ve done the maths. $70K CAD and I couldn’t spend all the money I’d be making. It would pay my debts, allow me to living in comfort and even allow me to save an adequate amount for retirement. I already work 12-16 hours days for less. I understand I don’t have Hurd’s experience of University degrees…but $950K still seems a stupendously excessive amount for someone to be making. That’s without delving into the options, bonuses and additional bits.
Just goes to show that it’s not hard work that’s rewarded, but rather making the right choices at the right times and knowing the right people. I went into the wrong field, no doubt about that. Still, bully for him. At least some people are living the dream.
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I watch water polo. The folks who play it get paid what I consider a pittance for their efforts. Other than that, I do watch Hockey like a good Canadian, but not the NHL. In fact, I'd like to see the players in the league I watch get paid more. I'd be willing to pay more for my season's tickets if they would.
Furthermore, CEOs in IT get paid excessively compares to their peers in most other industries. There are a few industries that are as bad, but overall IT is among the worst of the lot.
I also don’t see a “jealous rage” at all. I said I think he is grossly overpaid. I believe that the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company deserves to be paid in the quarter-million range regular salary. That would cover the stress and the long hours. It would put them on par with other folk who work for them putting those stupid hours in.
The company should indemnify them against lawsuits incurred on the job.
They should also get performance bonuses TIED TO PERFORMANCE OF THE COMPANY that is where they make their millions from. My beef is that the base salary is disproportionate to the effort. My beef is NOT with the man making millions.
Also: there are plenty of folk that Hurd employs with far greater education than hi that I assure you he doesn’t pay nearly that well. You can tell me I am not qualified to comment on this all you want, but I am merely comparing IT to the scale of available other industries and looking at the scale of BASE SALARIES and how they are calculated.
So I maintain my statement: effort isn’t rewarded. Luck and making the correct decision at the correct time is. Bully for Hurd managing to cheat the system, but it doesn’t make the system any more just.
"Hurd and his predecessor Carly Fiorina were overpaid. The brought no value to HP and left the company poorer than when they came."
You say that, but under Hurd's leadership, HP hit $100B in revenue for the first time, and beat IBM on revenue for the first time. So "poorer" is relative.
How many of these "Hurd ruined HP" posts are by the excess employees that Hurd cut? I guess those people are poorer, but Hurd left HP in good shape, and in much better market position than when he took it over. Yes, he had to cut unproductive divisions, but clearly those divisions were contributing.
As a former EDSer who got swallowed up HP and STILL has my job I can very much confirm that HP made EDS look almost reasonable and my colleagues and I viewed Hurd as a major part of the problem: the first reply to this topic is accurate in my opinion.
I don't care about the business results, we see none of it except the pain of increasingly short-staffed departments, pay freezes (cuts if we'd been in some countries) and incredibly low morale.
There must be benefits too.
For example, does he get to choose his own "consultants"? Are Oracle guaranteeing to pick up any "consultancy fees" he may invoice without any trouble, difficult questions or sacking^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinvitations to resign?
There things are important you know. Top executives need to be sure that can obtain the "services" they need to stay on top of things while on the job.
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