Fraud, embezzlement, things like that - no way. But c'mon, lots of CEO's do minor things wrong (hard drugs, affairs, escorts, saying not-PC things) - I mean, lots of people have at least one or two things about their life that they'd get in trouble if it came out in the wrong context. Someone that had been recently shamed by something like this would be able to get hired below what they'd normally command and would be likely to work extra hard. Good hire by Oracle so long as they can handle the PR backlash, which is something Larry Ellison never seemed to care about anyways.
[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870330970457541...
"[Hurd] submitted inaccurate expense reports that were intended to conceal... a 'close personal relationship'".
Without knowing the details, this sounds to me like a minor indiscretion and being on the wrong side of politics. The article says - "The amount of money in question wasn't disclosed." Sounds to me like we're talking about a rounding error in HP's expenses - a wrong-doing, to be sure, but one that only makes the ax fall on you when combined with politics.
If I was Oracle I'd do a thorough interview, ask some tough questions about the event, and ask how he feels about behaving squeaky clean at Oracle. Or even having him agree to expense auditing - you could break that in a diplomatic way by saying, "Hey, I want to recruit you, but the board has misgivings. Would you be comfortable having your expense account audited?" If he says yes, I'd be cool with having him onboard.
But again, we don't have the numbers, so I'm just guessing about the nature of it here. I could be dead wrong, in which case I'd change my mind.
I think most folks believe that the amounts and concealment were not really issues, as neither was either significant or deliberate.
I think the real issue was that the board was too weak to deal with what they expected the media fallout to be after the beating they took in their last scandal.
It's difficult to think what trade secrets HP has that Oracle would want. That printer ink is actually made from baby unicorn tears and so it's price is totally justified?
That's the impression I got from the article, anyway. I suppose it wouldn't be hard to argue that he can work for Oracle without disclosing HP trade secrets.
Depends, is "treat engineers like crap until they leave - thus reducing costs" an HP trade secret?
