HP’s Mark Hurd speaking at Stanford
Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd gave a short talk at Stanford this morning, and offered a few interesting comments on running the world’s biggest technology company.
First, on the sheer size of HP: The company’s annual sales grew from $79 billion in 2004 to $118 billion last year. The recent EDS acquisition gave HP nearly 320,000 employees. Hurd said HP’s supply chain now delivers three printers every second, two PCs a second and nearly one server every ten seconds.
Second, on the ethical challenges that face a global company which does 70 percent of its business outside the United States: Hurd said HP’s chief ethics officer and legal staff are constantly reviewing operations, but added, “There are lots of opportunities for things to not be exactly as we like it to be. We know something is not right this second, but we just don’t know exactly what it is.”
Hurd went on to say that HP has to be extra vigilant as it does so much business in emerging markets like Russia. “Nothing against Russia. But those emerging markets also have emerging cultures in the way they do business. We have people who grew up in cultures where they don’t do business the way we at HP like to do business.”
Third, on the personal demands of his job: Hurd, who reportedly collected about $42 million in salary, bonuses and compensation last year, said he spends nearly two-thirds of his time traveling and meeting with customers and managers around the world. When asked how that affects his family life — Hurd is married and has two children — he responded: “I don’t think you take these jobs if you’re not going to do them. I think you have to be willing to deal with the repercussions or you don’t sign on.”
He went on: “The minute you try to re-architect something to fit your personal life, when you have a company like ours, it won’t work. It’s non-sustainable.”
Hurd also outlined some of HP’s strategic vision for IT, which calls for building hardware around open, non-proprietary standards, and then adding value (and profit) by selling software and services on top of that.
Different segments of the hardware market are converging, he added, predicting that in five years, “you will not be able to tell a server from a storage device, a storage device from a networking device.”
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You have to love it when Mark Hurd talks about ethics don’t you, considering the very real human missery he’s caused to almost 100,000 people who’s jobs have been lost, moved offshore, or given to cheaper, less qualified people, he’s about as ethical as Pol Pot.
The founding fathers of HP would be turning in their graves if they could see what their company has become under Mark Hurd. Sure, I agree that there was a strong need for fiscal reform when Mark Hurd came along but I don’t see why HP had to be turned into a black hearted, ugly beast who’s own mother wouldn’t recognize it.
The strong fiscal discipline has come at the cost of HP’s heart, it’s inventiveness, creativity, and energy, and it’s soul , the HP shared values, the HP way.
HP might be the biggest IT company, but they certainly aren’t great. Maybe they have the bases covered with hardware, albeit with no real differentiators - you can get the same products from a variety of manufacturers - but when it comes to software, well HP is not the first brand you think of when it comes to that is it? And as far as services are concerned, if you call 3rd rate service from some third world location, by people who are barely out of subsistence mode and can’t do anything but follow a flow chart and try to mimic your accent, service then you should be ok.
What a joke.
they have grown to the point where they do nothing well except build walls to keep customers out.
Ethics - Ha that is a good one. He sure was Ethical taking that huge .5 percent paycut (yes point 5) and then raping the rest of his employee’s paychecks.
HP is now operating on Afro-Sumerian values, in which moral, ethics or even quality doesn’t matter. Communism, malice and fanaticism are survival mechanism of Afro-Sumerians.
It’s stupidity to criticize Afro-Sumerians because that their value system, to them ethics is stupidy and they will sell it for 10 bucks. As long it surving their purpose they will do it and it will be justified who get benefitted from it.
If you value ethics, individuality and quality then you have to stay away from Afro-Sumerians and build your own trade map, the good news is 80% of humans will be on your side, the pirates market is just 20% and it’s declining as humans are being more and more educated, so have patience ….. We are working on these suckers.
Pete
Ethics. heh. Bye Mark.
Hey HP, used to love your rock-solid calculators, printers, test gear.
Nowadays I hate your crappy bottom-of-the-bin laptops and offshore tech support outsourcing.
Howsabout this for a business plan?: Build good things people want to pay for.