Oracle CEO defends Hurd, condemns HP Board of Directors

Lawrence J. Ellison, CEO of Oracle and close friend of Mark Hurd, recently emailed his opinion on the HP situation to the New York Times in which he condemned the forced resignation of the long-time HP CEO. Despite the accusations of sexual harassment of a female contractor being false, Hurd was found guilty of tampering with expense accounts – which ultimately lead to his forced resignation. The interesting part of this saga is the fact that Hurd was a successful CEO for HP, an internationally renowned company known for its manufacturing of computer parts.

Here is what Ellison’s email to the NYT stated:

The H.P. board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago…that decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them.
In losing Mark Hurd, the H.P. board failed to act in the best interest of H.P.’s employees, shareholders, customers and partners…The H.P. board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false.

In some sense I can understand why the HP Board acted the way it did, but the argument can certainly be made for Mark Hurd to remain CEO of HP.

Read [NYT]