Thin Client

Eric Jackson of THe Street -- PALO ALTO, Calif. (TheStreet) -- Almost one year ago, I wrote here that former Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd was the emperor with no clothes. Most on Wall Street have revered Hurd as the consummate guy who would execute and meet Wall Street's expectations. He sounded good -- always in control -- and he certainly seemed much more together than his predecessor, Carly Fiorina.

In my article, I laid out the case for why Hurd was not as dazzling a CEO as many thought and also why he was a risky asset for Hewlett-Packard moving forward.

Although most observers seemed to agree that Hurd did a great job turning around Hewlett-Packard, I pointed out that Hurd's magic really ran out after his first two and a half years on the job. In those early years, HP's stock went up 137%. Over the last two and a half years, however, H-P's shares are down 20%. Although that performance beats the S&P 500, it badly trails rival IBM(IBM), where shares are up 20% over the same period.

The media kept showering Hurd with the "halo effect" reputation of being a turnaround genius long after his actual performance had stopped keeping up with what he accomplished at the start of his tenure with the company.

There are lots of good CEOs who suddenly lose their touch. What alarmed me about Hurd last year was the piggish behavior he and his executive team were exhibiting at the expense of H-P shareholders.

What was worse, they were gorging at the trough of lavish compensation and excess perks at the same time that they were hypocritically turning the screws on H-P employees (who remained after a series of layoffs) to accept pay cuts and reduced benefits.

Rest of article