Elevating the man to sainthood now is just ludicrous.
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OP is spot on. I mean, yeah, he was Larry's tennis buddy. But there are few (if any) stories of Hurd being beloved. He did give some bucks to Baylor, so they undoubtedly liked his financial contributions.
The guy had one tool in his CEO arsenal and that was cost cutting. "Class Of"? = cost cutting. Axe the knowledgable, effective salespeople and replace them with group after group of lower paid millennials. (Before that, just refuse to pay the effective top sellers until they have to resort to suing the company.) The Class Of kids may not be able to sell anything, but at least they feel good about emptying their own trash cans! And who cares if they'll be gone in less than a year? There will be another Class Of herd to fill the same seats the following year.
@11C1VHeP-1nnd Hi HR, how are you this morning? Could you please go and bother about a vision on how to treat your employees the right way, instead of wasting your time at this forum. Thank you.
I left Oracle partly because of Hurd. He cut compensation, bonus, expenses etc. I couldnt afford to work there anymore. Hurd didnt build a damn thing. All he did was cut. Same method at HP and NCR. I wont miss him.
@11C1VHeP-drq - "Leave and find a better job"
Oh, you bet I did! That was the whole point I was making. No one should waste their time working for a company that treats them this way. It is unlikely to get any better and I suspect there are some dark days ahead. If you have a way out, take it. I know many people that have been laid-off or left on their own. Every single one of them is happier now.
@11C1VHeP-foc "However most people expect to work for a company that treats them fairly and values their contribution."
Leave and find a better job. Sometimes in life, simplicity is the best teacher of all. People who still work at Oracle and complain it's a bad company mean they still love Oracle. Action speaks louder than words my friends. Leave and find a better job.
He just had his Andy Warhol moment. In a month no one in the media will be talking about him, he will be forgotten.
Even people at HP seem to have forgotten about him. There is little chatter about him on the HPE or HP Inc. forums.
@11C1VHeP-qnm - "Companies exist to make $$ and employees get paid for their service. It's as simple as that. Instead of feeling bitter about it, just feel grateful that you had or still have a job"
You must be an Oracle executive with that attitude (if you aren't, you should apply). No one in this day and age expects a job for life and I think most people understand that companies sometimes need to downsize. However most people expect to work for a company that treats them fairly and values their contribution. Companies like Oracle nickle and dime employees at every turn (benefit reductions, lack of raises ... ever, unattainable bonus plans, etc.) while spending ridiculous sums of money on stock buy-backs rather than innovating or investing in their future.
Viewing employment with such a such simple, transactional mindset is just sad frankly. Enjoy the ride to the bottom.
I find the stories about him this week very interesting – that HP's stock price doubled during his tenure, that LE considered him an amazing businessman, that he advocated for Oracle's move to Cloud, etc. It isn't even a long-term outlook either – like how did he setup HP for the future? or Oracle? It's all about business results as if that is the only scorecard that matters. That largely seems to be the way that MH (and LE) played the game though – it's all about near-term financial profit with a heavy bias towards how that allowed him to line his own pockets at pay rates that were out of alignment from real results or the rest of the industry.
No mention of how he slashed perks and benefits or how pay dropped from industry-leading to middle of the pack. No talk about how he incented the sales team to manipulate customers into buying Oracle Cloud credits they weren't planning to use and then using that to fraudulently report fantastic Cloud growth numbers to Wall Street. No stories about how he helped turn a once dominant corporation into one of the most hated suppliers due to their customer service and sales practices. Nothing about how Oracle has focused more on international markets and NetSuite because those customers haven't yet figured out that Oracle has a tendency to find ways to screw their customers over. No insight on how he cheated on his wife while at HP and how he paid for it with corporate funds. Apparently it doesn't matter that he was a narcissistic, manipulative, lying, cheating, piece of $#@%, just that he held stock prices up.
The hatred is deep at Oracle. That's unfortunate since everyone thinks it's still a life time job. It's just business for companies that's all everyone. Companies exist to make $$ and employees get paid for their service. It's as simple as that. Instead of feeling bitter about it, just feel grateful that you had or still have a job. It's amazing a little grateful can do to your health my friends.