Ethical Collapse at Hewlett-Packard

If our recent financial meltdown tells us anything, it is that corporate governance matters. Sure there are powerful economic forces always at play, but we see that financial institutions, automakers and even technology companies suffered at the hands of the personal mistakes and questionable character on the part of corporate "deciders." Four years ago, Hewlett Packard, one of the most iconic names in Silicone Valley, was plunged into a tawdry scandal that involved cover up, wiretapping, private investigators, big money and even bigger egos. In many ways it was the canary in the coal mine for what would happen on a far boarder basis. The recent resignation of HP CEO Mark Hurd was, it turns out, less about a sex scandal and more a capstone on four years of corporate turmoil at HP. Award winning business journalist Anthony Bianco in his new book The Big Lie: Spying, Scandal, and Ethical Collapse at Hewlett Packard, gives us a first hand account of a corporate morality tale for our times. My conversation with Anthony Bianco: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}