Talk about your high level pissing contest. The Perkins of legendary Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins quit the HP Board in a huff after it was revealed that the Chairwoman had hired investigators to secretly snoop into directors' private phone records to track down a leak to a magazine. Perkins' ties with HP go back virtually to the founding of the company. He apparently was outraged over the snooping and now is raising a stink that the company violated SEC regulations in not disclosing the reason for his resignation. Just when it appeared HP had turned the corner from the disastrous Fiorana era, now this. Maybe they should stick to men from now on. I can't see how this Chairwoman lasts until the next Board meeting. Not only was her snooping a blatant insult to the Board, it involved illegal pretexting, in which investigators lie to the phone company and pretend to be the customer to get their records. The company and the Chairwoman both face potential civil and possibly criminal liablilty. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14687677/site/newsweek/
properly she tried to prevent another talk-behind-her-back-Fiona-espiso but in the process she went too far, thus the end result will be she getting kicked out just like Fiona, oh! the irony.
The article clearly states that "pretexing" in and of itself is not so "cut and dried" as to it's illegality. The Board voted to "fire" the leaker....sounds like they back Dunn...it will be interesting to watch it play out....Perkins got bent out of shape and let his mouth open too much.... SteveD
Interesting...Patty Dunn is a long time (childhood) friend of my wife...she and her husband were big whigs at Wells Fargo for decades. I've been following her career (from a distance) over the last few years....I guess for the sake of my "marital bliss" that I'll keep a "wait and see" attitude about all this. The few times that we were together, Patty seemed to be the perfect example of propriety...but....?. Don
If the BOD wanted the appropriate board member terminated why didn't she simply request each board member surrender their personal phone record. It's the underhanded methodology that smells. Remember she serves at the pleasure of the board or once did. She is a political idiot.
I think that about sums it up. Whether it was criminal or not, it was criminally stupid. HP has always been a company that took a lot of pride in its corporate culture, and Perkins was part of all that. For her to get on the wrong side of him was insane. Perhaps there is an old Silicon Valley versus new Silicon Valley aspect to this, but my money's on Perkins. The last thing you want to do is get into a war of principle with a legend who basically has all the money in the world. This does not end well for Dunn.
All this multi culturalism bull shit coming home to roost for HP. Lesson number 1: Never let a woman do a mans job.
I'm confused, did they actually find out that he was leaking info? Also, does sex really have anything to do with this? It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see a male CEO doing the same thing.