[durasell]

Far be it for me to defend screw-ups (though Ovitz was amusing), but the folks you mentioned would have been quite a bit richer had they been successful. And I'm not going to blame someone for making the best deal they can when taking a job.

I would imagine, the available talent pool for those kinds of positions is pretty thin. I'd say there's probably under 100 guys capable and willing to run HP. And each of those guys is looking to make the best deal they can.

[radicalamericannationalist]

"And I'm not going to blame someone for making the best deal they can when taking a job."

And neither am I. The blame lays with boards. Probably one of the most basic concepts in corporate law is the "duty of due care." The board owes a fiduciary responsibility to exercise due care in making its decisions. I find it hard to believe that "negotiating" a deal that makes someone rich as Croesus, in spite of spectacular failure, can qualify as due care. The Disney case might be a first step in reminding board members that they actually have some responsibilities.


"I would imagine, the available talent pool for those kinds of positions is pretty thin."

Hmmm. Seems like the CEO set have found outsourcing manufacturing and tech jobs to be great policy. Why not go to India and find talented folks willing to work for much less (and maybe not get paid for getting fired)?

[FreedomCalls]

I'd say there's probably under 100 guys capable and willing to run HP.

And I would bet you are wrong. There are a lot of people who are running multi-billion dollar corporations who started out with nothing and when they started out no one would even dreamed of giving them a sandwich much less the position of CEO of a major company. For instance Dave Thomas of Wendy's, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Steve Jobs of Apple all took their companies to the billion-dollar level.

What there are are less than 100 people in the "good ol' boys" network of board chairmen from whom these people are drawn. The best CEOs are made in house, not hired from other successful companies.