HPE’s Meg Whitman on Uber CEO gig: ‘It wasn’t the right thing’
During an HPE earnings call, CEO Meg Whitman offered her first extensive remarks on that whole Uber CEO job search thing, promising investors that “I actually am not going anywhere.”
Whitman made the remarks after HPE reported earnings that were not god-awful. After a presentation by executives, Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research finally voiced the question we were all dying for somebody to ask: “Meg, I was wondering if you could maybe clear the air on your commitment to Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. There is obviously a lot of press speculation about you are potentially accepting a role at Uber as CEO. You had made statements saying that you are remaining at HPE. I was wondering if you could just clear the air on the apparent reporting discrepancies in your statements and where … you stand in terms of your commitment to HPE? Thank you.”
To recap: After Uber tossed co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick out the window, Whitman was reportedly a candidate. Then, following a mess of leaks from the board, Whitman very publicly took herself out of the running with a mini-tweetstorm.
End of story….not!
During the final weekend, Whitman re-emerged as the front runner, according to various reports. But apparently some of her demands, including putting Kalanick in a corner, soured some board members on her. Nobody puts Travis in a corner. And so the board picked that Expedia dude that you’d never heard of until he was named Uber CEO. Dara something, I think.
So, back to Whitman and her on-again, off-again candidacy. Whitman is now in year six of her five-year turnaround plan for HPE, which included her move to split the original Hewlett-Packard in twain. Perhaps it might not be surprising that the former eBay CEO is getting a bit bored with it all and her eye has started to wander.
But Whitman says no, and that this time she really means it!
Here are her full remarks from a transcript:
“Yes, sure. There has been some press. So listen, I thought, I was called in very late in the Uber search, and I thought it was a very interesting business model to me. It’s actually quite similar to eBay in many ways. It’s very disruptive, that relies on a community of drivers, just like eBay relies on a community of sellers. And the growth prospects reminded me of eBay in its early days. And, as you know, I am also an investor in Uber, and — but, in the end, that wasn’t the right thing.”
Continue reading:
- Meg Whitman stays at HPE – for now.
