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Meg Whitman to Step Down as HPE CEO

(www.wsj.com)
184 points praneshp | 4 comments | 21 Nov 17 21:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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rmason ◴[21 Nov 17 22:14 UTC] No.15752105[source]▶
If I remember correctly she said at her last HPE earnings call, "I am not going anywhere". She also stated she had much more work to do at HPE.

Now that was in response to Uber's courtship but this was so sudden you have to wonder what prompted it?

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fullshark ◴[21 Nov 17 22:34 UTC] No.15752255[source]▶
Perhaps CEOs lie to both investors and their employees.
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viraptor ◴[21 Nov 17 22:41 UTC] No.15752301[source]▶
Kind of. The manager in my team (hpe) hasn't been replaced for a few months after quitting, then the project was killed / people let go. Meanwhile, all the communication from the top was pretty much "this is an important project for us". And that's one of the reasons I'm unlikely to work in a big corp in the future.
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seanmcdirmid ◴[22 Nov 17 02:03 UTC] No.15753608[source]▶
Never trust the official communications, in fact you should treat them counter factually. More important, you need to be in some circle of know for highly political companies.
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viraptor ◴[22 Nov 17 02:28 UTC] No.15753719[source]▶
Why counter factually? I agree that they can be largely ignored and it's the actions that should be observed. But if things go well, some good chart will be presented, if not, some other good chart will be presented. What's the reason to go the opposite way?
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seanmcdirmid ◴[22 Nov 17 02:39 UTC] No.15753772[source]▶
If the higher ups feel the need to communicate how important X is to the company, it is usually because X is on shaky ground. If you knew nothing about X before, you know that about it now. If you think about the reasons behind why the message was communicated, rather than the message itself, you can get a lot more real knowledge out of it.
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coupdejarnac ◴[22 Nov 17 04:25 UTC] No.15754219[source]▶
This should be a key point to surviving in the corporate world. Whenever the CEO or VP of engineering spoke, I always paid attention to what was glossed over or conveniently omitted from the official line. While I found it all somewhat distasteful and duplicitous, it's the game. As such, I occasionally found it entertaining to discern what was really being communicated to me. Most other people take these kinds of official communication at face value. Never turn off your brain at work.
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1. mseebach ◴[22 Nov 17 09:46 UTC] No.15755577[source]▶
And what specific benefits did you get from this? What actionable insights did you get that your colleagues missed out on?

I've known quite a few monday morning quarterbacks/sophomore kremlinologists/cynics who would regale anyone who'd listen with their analysis of what management is really doing and (especially) what they obviously should have done. What is less clear is how this deep insight ever led to any actionable intelligence at all.

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2. simonh ◴[22 Nov 17 11:43 UTC] No.15756058[source]▶
I was working at an ISV trying to get a new product production ready. It was horrible, a monolithic opaque system that didn't work properly and had been languishing in development hell for almost a decade. Management refused to consider alternative proposals, insisted on doubling down on this system and 'bet the company' on it. When I realised they were really serious, I left.

Their first major sale of the new system to a client fell through 6 months later because the system wasn't ready (would probably never have been ready) and 3 months after that they were bought out and the project cancelled by the new owners. For those I left behind it was utter hell.

So this is a counter-example in a way. Rather than their commitment being unconvincing, it really was convincing. Still they were on a direct course to screwing up and I got out at just the right time.

3. itronitron ◴[22 Nov 17 12:48 UTC] No.15756339[source]▶
it's not always actionable, but the insight gained by actively analyzing/questioning/doubting the messaging from upper management is useful for a. keeping one's sanity, b. scheduling an exit, c. meaningful discussion, d. identifying opportunities within the organization, and e. entertainment value (stories to share with SO).
4. pm90 ◴[22 Nov 17 17:54 UTC] No.15758829[source]▶
It may not be actionable at all. Executives are where they are for a good reason: they are (usually) good communicators, effective at presenting a hopeful future even if the present sucks. The only thing employees can do is to decide if its worth working for them, as usually they don't have much control over the direction of the company.