Thread regarding Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) layoffs

Meg did what she could - she couldn't fix it and gave up

You can hate what Meg did but if she could have saved HPE/Q, she would have gone down as the greatest CEO in the known universe. Hating her for her inability to fix the massive damage before she came along isn't fair. It was too big to manage. Simply said, the damage was done starting with Carly. Mark pretty much doubled down on the stupid of adding new businesses (EDS.) Leo was too short lived. Who knows what he would have done. Meg came in and tried. I give her credit for that. While she does try to spin as if she did something special, she couldn't fix it. I don't think any one could. It's over.

HPQ will do ok for a bit but it's cornering the market on declining businesses. Eventually it will have to be split up again. My guess is "HP" will go with printing. HPE really has little to lean on. It too will be broken up. The letters "HP" might live on in some form but it's otherwise all over. Agilent and Keysight will hold on to what remains of the Dave and Bill legacy (if anything.)

Dave was right ... if we focus on the stock, we are doomed. Doom as arrived. I don't blame Meg for trying but it was too much and too big. The split of HPE and HPQ bought maybe 3-5 years tops. While HPQ looks ok now (who'd of thought?) it will go into a decline and split up. Weird that "HP" could eventually on be a "printer company." It was a side business originally although Inkjet certainly paid a lot of bills and delayed the decline. But maybe 3D can save it. Who knows. I don't.

We can speculate that a Bill and Dave led company would have survived but we don't know that, That HP was long ago. Dave did say that computers will be the death of the company. Go figure.

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| 3042 views | | 16 replies (last January 24, 2018) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+RbXqMSf

16 replies (most recent on top)

I don't think the split decision came at the last minute. I think it was on the table all along but she somehow got the agreement to let her try and fix it. We just don't know I so I don't dump it all on her.

On a side note, there was some speculation that other CEO candidates that the BOD talked with when Leo left told them they didn't see a fix and therefore declined the position (in differing words but the same message.) That could have been the start if it. If they thought it wasn't fixable, certainly Meg wasn't going to be able to change that.

So, no I don't blame her directly. I think it was all written in the stars.

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Post ID: @dkfc+RbXqMSf

You don't blame Meg for trying?

Has LSD been legalized?

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Post ID: @dqda+RbXqMSf

"Her expertise was in breaking up and selling off" Mission Accomplished! "now they need an operations person that understands the business and can grow it." Grow what? What hasn't been sold because no one wanted it?

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Post ID: @5wos+RbXqMSf

Her expertise was in breaking up and selling off, she was not an operations person. it is what it is, the board of directors got what they desired, now they need an operations person that understands the business and can grow it.

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Post ID: @5hpx+RbXqMSf

I’m not disputing she had a hand in it but CPQ, EDS and Autonomy were the brainchild’s of the CEOs. I guess we could say that no one could fix “their” mess. No doubt she wasn’t the right person for the job either way but I don’t think anyone is at this point. Just finish the breakup and move on.

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Post ID: @3zcu+RbXqMSf

"MegCoin?"

...

No, "MegGotItAll" would be a good name for it. The only way for the rest of us to get a few snippets of it, is to serve Her, and let it "trickle down". I am prepping up my toothbrushes and polish buckets, I hear her fleet of yachts might need some spiffing up...

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Post ID: @2dby+RbXqMSf

Let's bring back the HP Way with our own cryptocurrency. What should we name it? MegCoin?

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Post ID: @1bhj+RbXqMSf

Hello @RbXqMSf - this is buch of BULL!!!

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Post ID: @1igt+RbXqMSf

HP's decline is not that special. Xerox, Kodak, AOL, Yahoo, Sears ... there are thousands of examples of companies being marginalized, shrink and some may even die because the world changes (technology, trends, demographics ...).

While certainly I am not claiming Meg has the employees' best interests in her heart, i doubt she can save the company if she really wants to.

Take the IT market as an example. If everyone is moving to the public cloud, there is really little Meg can do. Compete in the cloud? How do you beat market leaders that are already miles ahead of you? It is like once saying turn around the slide rule industry once the calculator is invented. Steve Jobs did pull a rabbit out of his hat and saved Apple. But that is the exception, not the rule.

Now a declining company probably invites vultures and a different kind of execs. If i have a vision, why would i want to work for HPE instead of someone in the forefront of IT (like Amazon AWS)?

I think people just have to accept that some companies are just beyond saving, and attracting vultures is just a result, instead of the main cause of their demise.

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Post ID: @1kpa+RbXqMSf

OH SHUT UP, MEG!!! Geesh, going to go through life blaming the prior CEO's, you got your money... Now pack your sh!t and get out...

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Post ID: @1uyl+RbXqMSf

That’s not true. There were plenty of executives that walked away with loads of cash.

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Post ID: @1ekk+RbXqMSf

Yup, only employee that benefited from Meg's tenure was Meg.

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Post ID: @1jyv+RbXqMSf

Meg was totally clueless, it was McKinsey + bunch of other paid 3rd party who decided how to benefit themselves by charging huge fees and suggesting endless transformation, splits, M&A bs etc.

She was a bad bad choice for all - shareholders, customers and of course employees.

Crony capitalism, ffs.

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Post ID: @roe+RbXqMSf

"Weird that "HP" could eventually on be a "printer company." It was a side business originally although Inkjet certainly paid a lot of bills and delayed the decline."

I seem to recall that even during the Lew Platt days there were years when printing paid all the bills, and people joked that HP was "(D--k) Hackborn's Peripherals"

" While HPQ looks ok now (who'd of thought?) it will go into a decline and split up."

VJ saw the handwriting on the wall 10 years ago. I heard him tell an anecdote: He bought his daughter an HP bundle package. She setup the laptop and the digital camera. She then grabbed the still unopened inkjet printer box and stashed it in her closet.

It's all about multifunction devices now. And I doubt those are selling all that well these days. It's pretty much a commodity market now, with no discernible difference between the competition, so it's a race to the bottom now, and we know how that ends.

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Post ID: @fkc+RbXqMSf

Wasn't Meg on the same board that hired Leo Apotheker? The same board that approved the purchase of Autonomy? Not sure you can really give her a pass on that.

As for HPQ - the weird thing about the shift to cloud computing is that you still need end devices, lots of them and they need to be replaced on a regular basis.

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Post ID: @crn+RbXqMSf

Breaking companies into smaller parts without any vision or strategy is not fixing.

Laying off thousands of employees... without any vision or strategy is not fixing.

Making sure that CEO do not lose her bonus...and let all HP employees struggle for small increments and bonuses is not fixing.

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Post ID: @wtp+RbXqMSf

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