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September 10, 2006

Newsweek Digs into Dunn Scandal at HP

Newsweek does some digging into the HP board scandal for a surprising cover article in this week's issue. I say "surprising" because business articles rarely get covers, and Newsweek had to know that the real news on Dunn was due after press -- specifically, today -- when white or black virtual smoke from an HP board conference call in the Valley would tell whether a new HP chair had been named.

Nevertheless, the piece is useful background on the differing personalities of Dunn and Perkins, even if it doesn't advance the ball materially with respect to what Dunn knew, and when she knew it -- the is she "lying or incompetent" school of thought. There's also a strange story in the piece about how Perkins buzzed Dunn at a party with a radio-controlled model helicopter.

Here, however, is an example of how the two had very different approaches to HP:

Perkins, the venture capitalist, thought in broad strategic strokes, preferring to leave the details to others. Dunn thought the core of her job was to dot the I's and cross the T's--to keep her board process-driven rather than personality-driven. It drove Perkins nuts. It kept making him think of that helicopter. He recalls a meeting in his office with her in which he wanted to discuss how to compete better with Dell, IBM and others. According to Perkins, she was fixated instead on her discovery that there were inconsistencies between HP's bylaws and the Corporate Directors Handbook. Those inconsistencies then occupied hours of discussion at subsequent board meetings. "Intel might be kicking the crap out of us," Perkins says, "but that didn't seem to matter."

Read the whole thing.

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