Mark Hurd, co-chief executive of Oracle and former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, died Friday. He was 62.
Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison announced Hurd’s death in an online post Friday. Hurd had taken a leave of absence from the company in September for unspecified medical reasons, saying only that he needed to focus on his health.
“Oracle has lost a brilliant and beloved leader who personally touched the lives of so many of us during his decade at Oracle,” Ellison said in a statement. “I will miss his kindness and sense of humor.”
Hurd had been with Oracle for almost 10 years, first as co-president along with Safra Catz beginning in September 2010. In 2014, Hurd and Catz became co-CEOs at Oracle when Ellison stepped down from the post and took on the role of chairman and head of technology. At the time, Hurd was given control of Oracle’s sales, service and marketing departments, while Catz oversaw the company’s operations, legal and finance areas.
Hurd’s death elicited sentiment from multiple corners of the tech sector.
Salesforce founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff, who started his tech career at Oracle, went on Twitter to say how saddened he was to hear of Hurd’s passing.
“He was always very kind to me & I always enjoyed seeing him at the Warriors (games) at Oracle Arena,” Benioff tweeted. “All of my thoughts and prayers are with his family & employees of Oracle.”
I’m so sad to hear of the passing of Mark Hurd ceo of Oracle. He was always very kind to me & I always enjoyed seeing him at the Warriors at Oracle Arena. All of my thoughts & prayers are with his family & employees of Oracle. May the One who brings peace bring peace to All. ❤️
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) October 18, 2019
Tim Bajarin, president of tech research firm Creative Strategies, called Hurd “one of the smartest CEOs I ever met.”
“He was highly intelligent, very detailed, and I was always impressed with his leadership skills,” Bajarin, said. “His time at HP was important as he helped stabilize the company when it was going through a difficult transition, and at Oracle he helped the company continue its strong growth.”
Hurd first made his mark on Silicon Valley when he joined HP in 2005 after a quarter-century at NCR, which had culminated in a two-year stint as the ATM maker and payment system company’s CEO. His tenure at HP began at a tumultuous time for the computer maker, which had just forced then-CEO Carly Fiorina to resign.
At HP, Hurd was known as an aggressive cost-cutter and oversaw the slashing of more than 15,000 jobs soon after taking the CEO position. However, under Hurd’s watch, HP cemented its place as the world’s top desktop and laptop computer maker and also strengthened its position in the printer market. The company increased its earnings in 22 consecutive quarters during Hurd’s tenure.
Tech industry analysts weighed in on Hurd’s passing. Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, called Hurd a “tech legend” and said his death was “tragic.”
“Mark was one of the visionaries in the technology landscape and helped change the paradigm of enterprise hardware buying forever,” Ives said. “The world lost a tech giant and a good person for those that had the pleasure to spend time with him.”
Hurd’s time at HP was not without controversy, however. In 2006, HP went through what was called the “pretexting” scandal, in which the company used outside investigators to look into board members and some reporters in order to determine the source of a leak to the media. As part of the incident, Hurd ended up replacing Patricia Dunn as HP’s board chairman.
Hurd himself was forced to resign from HP in 2010 due to his relationship with a marketing contractor for the company. An investigation by the company into Hurd’s behavior determined he did not violate HP’s sexual harassment policies but that he had failed to adhere to company standards by altering expense reports to conceal the interactions.
A month after leaving HP, Hurd was back atop the Silicon Valley corporate ranks, thanks to Ellison, his good friend and tennis partner.
Ellison, who hired Hurd to be Oracle’s co-president, had not concealed his disdain for HP’s decision to force his friend out of the CEO job. In a letter to the New York Times at the time of Hurd’s ousting, Ellison wrote that HP’s board had “just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.”
“Hurd had his strengths and weaknesses,” said Rob Enderle, president to tech research firm the Enderle Group. “However, at Oracle he had been nothing but an asset.”
Hurd, who lived in Atherton, is survived by his wife, Paula, and their two daughters.
