Wednesday, November 21, 2012

HP

Years ago I used to like Hewlett Packard.  Had (in fact, still have) an HP 12C calculator, and an HP computer or two.  But once HP got greedy and started grossly overcharging for the ink in their printers, well, they lost my good will.

They're struggling these days, trying to recover from serial blunders by a series of CEOs.   And now I see that HP is alleging that a company it acquired, Autonomy, defrauded it by hiding the true amount of its sales history.  In other words, those geniuses on th board of directors approved a fraudulent deal.

So, just for grins, I checked out how much the directors get paid.  Turns out, an obscene amount, between $300,000 and $400,000 a year.  For 34 meetings a year.  Roughly $10,000 per meeting.  I know, I know, they do work outside the meetings.  Right.

There are 10 directors, so that's a bill of about $3,500,000 a year.  And for that they get the kind of advice that hires a succession of loser CEOs, and enters into multiple bad, or even fraudulent, transactions.

What's really going on is just rich guys logrolling, helping each other out, tossing each other lots of unearned cash.  Cronyism.  Disgusting.  Serves them right.  I'm just sorry for the employees who will take a hit.

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