Thread regarding VMware layoffs

He sent an email?

Another BS email from Raghu today.

ARR blah, blah, blah, SaaS and subscription blah, blah, blah H2 priorities blah, blah, blah blah.

The most uninspiring CEO in Tech.

When I first joined we had the twin CTO's of Raghu and Rajiv, i would put them nowhere near customers on their communication skills alone, now both CEO's! Go figure

Mr Magoo was a puppet majority of time if you knew his role 6/7 years ago and anything after it; no leadership, no CEO strength - Mikey/SL put him in charge for that reason it was all orchestrated

Mr. Magoo is a patsy. Dell and Silver Lake did an amazing job getting money out of their asset. What Magoo does and says maybe irritating, but is a side show not worth watching unless you are into cringe worthy TV.

I have to say though, after reading the CRN article, this is just sad…

“Two days later, VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram said he was approached by another company, which might be interested in buying VMware.

“Raghuram noted that a senior executive of a large publicly traded corporation (referred to as Party B) had reached out following the news reports regarding a potential Broadcom transaction and expressed interest in a potential transaction,” the filing stated.

However, Dell countered that.

He told those assembled that he had interacted with a senior executive of “Party B” in Davos the day prior. Dell said the executive did not mention anything regarding a potential transaction.”

Basically Dell telling Raghu to go back to the kids table. Don’t particularly feel sorry for him, but Raghu is kind of stuck in this position.

This supposed leadership call sounds interesting. Do tell…

@GTFO If you listen to enough of Inglish (Indian English) you will get used to it. If you have work at VMware and interacting so many managers (literally every manager and senior management are Indians) and still not used to the accent, that is beyond me. He is perfect, no coach necessary. Just watch more Bollywood and everything will be soothing.

I would just like it if he had ever been able to spent intelligible English. How you live in the US for years get to be a CEO of a US-founded company and don't have a language coach to improve your accent is beyond me. It made him difficult to take seriously.

I could just about cope with the ineffectualness (although agree with all other posters that he should have been robustly 'trained' to be able to string a sentence together / use technology / dress more smartly), but I agree that he has recently developed an arrogance that is deeply unbecoming. On a leadership call last week making comments like "when your people tell you Broadcom are a piece of cr-p, tell them to have a more balanced view" is the sort of comment that, made whilst lolling in his chair like a petulant teenager, just makes me despair.

His reaction when people spammed WFH in the company meeting zoom chat was priceless. VMware workers aren’t serfs, specially not to a puppet.

is there no CEO training you can do?

I knew a guy who worked at Oracle and was moving to a job where he would interact with the public. He was sent to a training course to learn how to speak by getting rid of pause words (um, ahhhh, etc.). They video taped him, and played it back for him to show him what he was doing and measure his progress.

Training courses exist, but for some reason they are not used at vmware?

I don't think you could do worse if you held a competition for people off the street to ''Be the CEO for a day!'' Drag some random guy you meet outside a shop who looks bewildered like he's won a competition and stick him in front of a teleprompter to get the words out, blank stare while there are comms issues, I honestly think he would do no worse and maybe even better than Ragu trying to get the words out. I'm embarrassed for him! God knows how he must feel, he must know he's bad. FFS upgrade your glasses, get a haircut, buy some smart clothes, is there no CEO training you can do? At least look like you care

Raghu don't care what you think, he's getting a cool 50 Emms when this is all done.

Op, Say you are in Raghu’s place and you’re 50 million on the line, would you not do what you are told?

Not that I am a fan of Raghu, just want you to see he is not in control, no ceo was ever in control, since emc bought VMware in 2004, everybody had to do what they were told to do, if for one second anyone thought that VMware was truly independent, I would say try and learn a bit about how corporate executive structure works.

I don’t think Raghu is a fool, just a once promising engineering director promoted well beyond his capabilities. He should not have made VP, SVP or COO let alone CEO. I put more blame on Gelsinger and the board for not hiring a leader with SaaS experience, and an actual COO years ago when they should have.

They dumped a truck full of money at Raghu's door. And he played his part willingly. You'd do the same, for $50 million. I'd do the same.

I'd just dress better doing it.

Speaking to the obvious, op. VMware is a scandalous company. The right executives for that are in place.

Raghu was put in place as a patsy CEO that much is obvious.