HPE lawyers claim Autonomy chief Lynch knew all about 'revenue-pumping' carousel

Re: Wait so HPE overpaid by almost 9 billion because of $20m?

Won't be surprised if they find Lynch fraudulently inflated Autonomy but nobody inflated Autonomy like HP bidding against itself. No one outside HP thought that valuation was sane when the deal was announced.

Re: What about auto-updates?

>> that he wasn't honestly growing the business

I think that's a given at this point. It's about whether the stunt meets the legal standard for fraud.

HPE were (are?) also idiots and that's a given too. A fool and his money are soon parted as they say.

But they're trying to save face as much as they can, and that's fair enough.

Unlike the current occupant, this one will probably has the cash (lots of it!).

And perhaps showers more frequently.

Re: This has been asked before but

>Due diligence is usually done within a very tight timeframe - I'm guessing 6 weeks for this.

Whilst the detailed work (drilling down on what is behind the published figures) might be time constrained, HP had as much time as they wanted before they made the offer and so should had done much beforehand with the publicly available information, meaning that the due diligence is more about confirming findings and answering questions raised.

The other thought I can't quite get out of my head about this is that market value of something is what somebody's prepared to pay for it.

"fixation on quarterly performance"

"But a curse of modern times, especially in the US where there's the fixation on quarterly performance rather than longer term, sustainable growth."

The UK has its share of this stupidity, too. (Though perhaps, given that sentiment and greed plays such a part, it is rational if your only interest is to score some cash and run before the house falls down).

Before and during the bursting of the late 90s bubble, I was (for once) in a salaried post in the City working for a systems integrator and watched with fascination as its board (I was one step below, and of course ignored as soon as I started offering warnings), fixated on a mythical IPO, began bullying clients for payments (relationships rapidly ruined), slashing recruitment and training budgets (staff performance declined), pushing managers to bill hours (so they couldn't 'manage' any more) and cutting any unbillable time devoted to admin, team-building, professional development, etc etc. I vividly recall a very expensive performance & strategy away-weekend where I presented on how my department was realistically, actually going to perform for the next six months, given our pipeline, staffing, skills, training requirements and the exigencies of competent project work, and being met with blank stares since all others had offered a rosy picture of steadily increasing quarter-by-quarter revenues ... exactly what the board had to believe ("because that's what the analysts need to see"*¹)

You can fill in the remaining several months yourselves. Personally I'd have sooner forgotten IPO, kept the team, built up for the long term and grown organically. Instead the company was basically destroyed by its founders' obsession with the short term. Its very name has vanished. (No, I didn't refuse a fat payout, but things could have been so much better for everyone.) All in all it was a fascinating experience watching as the poisoned Kool-Aid spread its effect among previously quite sensible, rational people.

(The return to contracting/consulting, where I can stay outside of toxic management fads, avoid career structures infested with self-serving halfwits and, best of all, turn my back on office politicians, has become permanent. The coprorate world, I have sadly concluded, is full of greedy, lazy idiots.)

*¹ Not much actual analysis involved, then, is there?

>actually a bit more than that

There is no math you can do that can possibly justify even half of what HP paid for Autonomy. A incredibly dumb deal done by an incredibly inept CEO who lasted barely a year hired by an inept board. This is not hind sight talking either. Plenty of posters on here even were saying the same thing the day the deal was announced.

This can be a factor in the management style of the CEO. If staff are given the clarity and freedom to do their job they wouldn't be asking questions they can answer themselves.

I blame MBAs. IMHO, a CEO is the tall poppy that faces towards the enemy, ie investors, analysts, VIP customers and sets strategy. If a good CEO has a good executive team, then they have the 'bandwidth' to do that well. If they're having to spend a lot of time micromanaging down the org chart, then they should be firing the people nominally in charge.

Same with regular managers. Good ones should have plenty of time to play golf in between 'managing upwards'. If they've got a good team, there shouldn't be much to manage. But then they may get comments like "You don't look very busy", or have to listen to other managers complaining about how busy/stressed they are during pointless meetings. But for some reason, the busy/stressed managers are the ones that tend to get promoted because they're spending 12-hour days, clearly dedicated to the business and should thus be rewarded.

But they're often the micromanagers who make their teams harder, not easier, and don't have the creativity or flexibilty to find ways to make their team work more effectively. And they're also the types that tend to manage upwards, because they're incapable (or afraid) of making the decisions themselves and want the attention/validation of their peers.

But such is business, and personally I think Lynch's response was appropriate. Me, I'd have been tempted to add the relevant section from the person's roles and responsibilities and ask if they're having problems performing the duties they were hired to perform?