Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs reportedly offered ousted Mark Hurd, former CEO of HP, support following the sexual harassment scandal that resulted in his resignation in 2010.
Bloomberg Businessweek's profile of HP published last week, which offers an extensive look at HP and asks whether new CEO Meg Whitman will be able to stop HP from continuing down a slippery slope, explains that Jobs contacted Hurd after his resignation in a bid to help repair Hurd's relationship with HP and prevent the company from entering a free fall.
"Three days after he'd resigned as CEO under pressure from the company's board of directors, Hurd received an email from Steve Jobs," Bloomberg Businessweek's report reads. "The Apple founder wanted to know if Hurd needed someone to talk to."
"Hurd met Jobs at his home in Palo Alto, according to people who know both men but did not wish to be identified, compromising a personal confidence," the report continues. "The pair spent more than two hours together, Jobs taking Hurd on his customary walk around the tree-lined neighbourhood."
"At numerous points during their conversation, Jobs pleaded with Hurd to do whatever it took to set things right with the board so that Hurd could return. Jobs even offered to write a letter to HP's directors and to call them up one by one," the report concludes.
Hurd's ouster from HP can be compared to Jobs' departure from Apple in 1985, but personal sympathy for the situation wasn't Jobs' only motive for offering Hurd support. Jobs believed that HP was "essential to a healthy Silicon Valley," and that Hurd would be the best person to save the company.
Jobs efforts were unsuccessful, however, and he lived to witness the fall of HP before he died in October 2011. Hurd went on to become president of tech company Oracle, a position that he maintains today.
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