Mark Hurd and HP, economic opportunism and greed, one year on.

by Damian Saunders on January 30, 2010 · Comments

Mark Hurd’s tenure as HP’s CEO continues to raise a passionate response. It’s almost one year since I wrote my original post about HP under Mark Hurd called HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed so with that, and approximately 1300 comments later, I think its fitting to round out the conversation with a look at HP’s SEC filing for 2009.

I have no intention of continuing to write about HP or Mark Hurd from this point on, all I’ve wanted to say has been said in previous articles, and I want to write about more interesting subjects. The HP, Mark Hurd situation is not an isolated issue, it’s symptomatic of a bigger problem with Corporations in general, and it will take a lot more than a few blogs from me to make any difference.

Lets have a look at the salient points of the SEC filing.

  • Mark Hurd, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President (the guy that makes the decisions, approves them and, supposedly, keeps them honest, all rolled into one), earned total compensation of $32, 332, 527 in 2009. When you look at it further it’s interesting to note this includes over $400,000 for 401k company matching, personal use of HP’s corporate jet, and security. Update: Also check out
  • Catherine Lesjak, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, earned total compensation of $7,585,775, including over $200,000 in 401k matching, security, and personal use of the HP Corporate Jet.
  • Ann Livermore, Executive Vice President, HP Enterprise Business, took home $13,424,406 in including around $184,000 in 401k matching, security and personal use of the corporate jet.
  • R. Todd Bradley, Executive Vice President, Personal Systems Group, $12,538,329 in his personal coffers including about $248,000 in 401k matching, relocation expenses, personal use of the company jet, and security.
  • Vyomesh I. Joshi, Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, a package of $11,644,691 including $183,000 odd of 401k matching, security services and use of the corporate jet.

Update: Mark Hurd also cashed in aproximately $11m in share options during 2009, check out Yahoo Finance HPQ Insider Transactions for the specifics. (thanks to a comenter on this post).

There we have it, Mark Hurd and four other people in HP took home $75,525,728 in 2009. Admittedly it was significantly less than the previous year, but if you consider the circumstances, and what they stooped to to "earn" it, it’s still questionable, which ever way you slice and dice it.

I invite you to read the SEC filing, it makes interesting reading in terms of the executive compensation in HP’s peer group of companies, and the "performance" based compensation scheme.

When I look at it I can’t see any real top line "performance" at all, just, in my opinion, a company that’s exploiting it’s employees, compromising Customer service through its best shoring program, and that has sold out on it’s corporate values, all for the sake of putting shareholders first.

I think it’s only a matter of time before people more significant than me start asking Mark Hurd hard questions about real growth, rather than the illusion caused by acquiring and consuming other companies. In the meantime we, as consumers and/or employees can vote with the two most tangible things we have, our labor, and our chequebooks.

  • Another one bites the dust
    I receive my WFR package last week and one of the terms is that I can never be employed by any HP entity anywhere in the world forever and forever.

    Can anyone comment if this is the same for those who left HP already? Seems like a restriction on trade and employment created by the Hurd administration. Wonder what kind of drugs they are feeding on to stop people from employment. Also is that legal?
  • Don_Jaime
    I wonder how they can do that and yet still tout the company as being an "equal opportunity employer". Maybe that only counts for round one.
  • Terry
    so what if your current employment gets outsourced to HP or HP buy your company like they did 3Com, EDS, Compaq etc?

    Sounds like unenforceable bollocks to me
  • I think the limit for me was somewhat less, not that I'm likely to be working there again anyway, and thank God for that.
    Time will come quickly for you when you realise that this is actually a good thing. You wont want to go back.
    I seriously doubt whether those contracts would hold much sway in a court of law, but it depends on where you live. In Australia they would be laughed out of court if it ever got that far.
  • TrampledByTheHurd
    This week's press coverage of the Bob's Red Mill ownership succession is really a stark contrast with HP's leadership style. This is the blurb from Oregon Public Broadcasting (National Public Radio): http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OR_BUSIN...

    As a victim of one of Hurd's blood lettings last year--which the media always happily spins as "shedding employees", like the employees are some kind of corporate dander--this kind of positive example really casts an interesting light on Hurd in comparison. It makes perfect sense to me that employees who give their time, health and life force for the success of the company are innate stockholders too, but corporate law affords us no rights or security. Pity the employees when the board feels they don't owe us anything either.
  • One of my points has always been that Mark Hurd is acting out of integrity with HP's published corporate values, and those of the companies founders.
    It's good to see that there are still people in the world who can run successful businesses, remain in integrity with their values, and treat their people with trust and respect.
  • RemovetheHurd
    At least someone in the media is beginning to smell a rat.
    http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10005382/hp...
  • HurdHater
    I just saw that HP's latest results show profit was up 13% to $3.5 billion. It makes me sick to think a pig like Mark Hurd can ruin people careers and even lives treating his employees the way he does.

    I was going to say I don't know how he sleeps at night, but i'm guessing it's on a big pile of money that he's pretty much stealing off his employees year after year. Still a pay freeze, still redundancies, no recognition...yet he rubs it in our faces about the results.

    This man needs exposing for the lowlife that he is, just abusing his position of power to make himself richer and richer.
  • What can I say ....
    Check out HP Share price on Yahoo Finance. Click on Insider Transactions on your left. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=HPQ

    You'll be interested to know that MH made up for his drop in his 2009 compensation by selling off his options .... add up the amount since Nov 2009, $11M
  • glad to leave
    What a post. Today as I sit in my new desk away from working for HP. It is one year since I resigned, in hindsight, that's the bestest decision I ever made.
  • HP virtualization
    Here is another blog from someone who chose to leave HP, the creator of HP Integrity Virtual Machines, HP's enterprise virtualization solution for Itanium servers.
  • RemovetheHurd
    Says it all really. There is no future for any of us in HP unless you are an egotistical, sycophantic bully.
  • Dude!
    I agree. You need to get on with your 'post HP' life and leave the rest of us
    to figure it out for ourselves.

    Hopefully someone will create a real blog for HP issues.

    I'm aware of some others
    but I don't want to publicize them yet.

    So long and thanks for all the fish ! (Douglas Adams)
  • For those of us who are dying of suspense you could start here http://www.proletar.com/By-Employees/HP.html
  • BrianBoru
    I own or use the following hp products:

    New hp Pavillion Elite - random crashes and BSOD, won't boot for days at a time. Given the volume of discussion on the web, I am far from being the only one.
    LaserJet 1022 - intermittent print issues, no fix in sight after 6 months of looking
    Old ScanJet - works fine, but no hp driver updates so half the functionality I bought it for is lost
    hp PhotoSmart - battery cover broken soon after purchase, known issue, no parts available. Focus issues.
    Brand new work laptop - random BSOD, major boot errors
    hp iPaq - innumerable problems and usability issues, one of the worst phones ever, imho

    ..oh, and a LaserJet II that is still going strong something like 15 years after it was produced.

    I've had to help several friends escalate major support issues with hp products. Numerous colleagues don't buy hp because of reliability issues. I will no longer buy hp products, and now recommend my friends and family to not buy hp (this really hurts me as I used to be proud of hp, but I can't lie to these people).

    At some point this is going to kill the company.
  • from Israel
    On a more somber note, last week a 26 year veteran of HP, who recently got laid off in Israel has committed suicide. Again Mark Hurd's long arms reach quite far accross the globe.
  • Anonymous
    You missed Randy Mott's 2009 compensation which was over $28M USD.
  • Roger Melly
    I don't know about the US but in the UK the name Randy Mott is comedy gold to anyone with a penchant for slang. And let's face it with UK industry going rapidly down the pan then profanity and sexual euphemism is the only thing that we still do well.

    It's not worth $28m in gold but every time I see the name it does make me smile.
  • Irish HP conscript
    Randy Mott is a hilarious moniker in Ireland where "Mott" is a much used slang word ( originally from the gaelic word "maith" ) and is an affectionate term for a girlfriend.
  • Yeah, cracks me up, in Australia randy means horny, and not always in a good way, conjures up images of randy old buggers like Benny Hill and the cast of Carry On...movies, if you remember them. Yeughk!!!
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