As in all shotgun marriages, Meg Whitman's hiring as the new CEO of Hewlett-Packard is generating a lot of talk.
Having overseen eBay's ascent from a start-up to Internet giant, Whitman's resume is formidable. But the last time she managed a company was almost four years ago, an eternity in technology. And some of the shine has worn off since her bid for governor of California was derailed by her employment of an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper, despite spending millions of her own fortune to finance the campaign. That's why stock analysts and industry types are questioning the wisdom of H-P's decision to fire Leo Apo theker less than a year after it fired its last CEO, Mark Hurd.
H-P Chairman Ray Lane says Apo theker lacked "people.... and communications skills," something Whitman has in spades. Whitman and Lane communicated something of a morale booster in a jointly authored email to H-P's 300,000-plus employees yesterday. The "industry's brightest and most talented people," as the employees were referred to, will have to forget about all the controversy and focus on executing the company's product strategy. As for Whitman, she has a tall order, which includes figuring out just what the iconic Silicon Valley company is all about these days.
As one analyst told WSJ, " there is no person on the planet who understands deeply all the theaters that H-P operates in." (WSJ)
Your Life, Facebooked (WSJ)
Your entire life online, basically, will happen within the blue walls of Facebook. Movies, music, books and news, all consumed and shared on the social network. At least that's the vision laid out by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the company's developers conference yesterday. For a deep exploration of the changes announced yesterday, read Steve Levy's take in Wired.
Valley VC NYC (Venture Capital Dispatch)
New York City's tech scene is just as strong as Silicon Valley's, says Ron Conway, the famed early investor in companies like Facebook and Twitter. Since 2009, the percentage of Conway's investments based in New York has jumped from 2% to 20%.
Dividing Yahoo (Business Insider)
Yahoo's board isn't even looking for a new CEO to replace Carol Bartz, this report says. Instead, the company is trying to broker a sale to a private equity firm that would split up the company's U.S. and Asian businesses.
Boosting African-Americans in Tech ( The Hill)
Some tech heavyweights from Foursquare, AOL and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz will sit on a panel in Washington, D.C. today to discuss increasing the numbers of African-Americans in the technology sector.
Freedom to Decide (NYT)
IT departments have a new headache: choice. Some companies, like Kraft Foods, allow their employees to use the computer equipment of their choosing, which their IT departments then have to service.
Shutting It Down (Los Angeles Times)
The federal government's high-tech manufacturing loan program could be hit hard by House republicans who want to cut $1.5 billion from its budget to pay for disaster relief. The Energy Department says the program has created 38,000 jobs so far.
Reform ( The Guardian)
The recruiting mechanism for hiring s oftware developers is broken, but here are some ways we can fix it.
Re-Training Available (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Atlanta will get $1.65 million in federal funds to re-train unemployed and military veterans to become health IT workers. Nineteen o ther regions also won funding.
Not Fair (Fox News)
If you're the first-born sibling in your family, you're more likely to rake in six figures a year and sit in the company's executive suite.
Buzz Around the Office
Unicycle plus bagpipes plus Star Wars. Yup, fairly standard stuff.
List of the Day: Why Your Locale Matters in Your Job Search
It's not as simple as big pond, small pond. Here's why:
1. The number of networking opportunities
2. The performance of local industries
3. The number of competing job seekers
(Source: AOL Jobs)
For news you need throughout the day, follow techFINSider on Twitter and Facebook.