HP CEO Mark Hurd Resigns
PALO ALTO, Calif. — HP today announced that Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd has decided with the Board of Directors to resign his positions effective immediately.
Context & Ripple Effects
Mark Hurd built his tenure at HP on cost discipline — the February 2009 memo ordering across-the-board pay cuts became shorthand for how he ran the company. That same operator's résumé includes the confirmed $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in late April and a device lineup, from discounted Envy laptops to the rumored Windows 7 Slate, aimed squarely at blunting Apple's iPad.
Today that tenure ends abruptly: Hurd resigned as Chairman, CEO and President effective immediately, jointly with the Board, following sexual harassment accusations per Silicon Alley Insider's pickup. Board members including Marc Andreessen are charged with finding a successor, and HP moved quickly with an employee-facing letter — signs the company is trying to control a leadership vacuum at the exact moment it is integrating Palm and racing Apple in tablets.
First-order effects
- HP loses its Chairman, CEO and President in a single move, forcing the Board to run a full external CEO search while the company is mid-integration of the $1.2 billion Palm purchase.
- Hurd's successor inherits every unresolved product bet — including Slate plans briefed internally but not yet shipped — with no mandate of their own yet.
Second-order effects
- Apple gains a window to extend the iPad's head start against HP's unlaunched tablet response, since the Slate strategy now rests with an interim leadership team.
- A new CEO could revisit the austerity playbook — the pay-cut era defined Hurd's cost base — shifting internal bargaining power back toward product and R&D groups.
Third-order effects
- The episode reinforces a governance pattern where boards remove financially successful CEOs over personal-conduct issues, making succession planning a standing strategic function rather than an emergency drill.
- If the successor pivots away from Hurd's hardware-and-acquisition approach, HP's identity as a consumer devices maker — the premise behind buying Palm at all — becomes contestable.
The trend: Boards are increasingly willing to terminate star CEOs over conduct rather than performance, even mid-transformation, turning CEO succession into a live strategic variable for large tech companies.