How Much Is a CEO Truly Worth?

Oracle (ORCL) announced that it’s hiring Mark Hurd, formerly of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). First, I’m glad to see wealthy and powerful people finally land on their feet after a few weeks of unemployment.
But an interesting question is, how much does a CEO really add to a company’s business? When you get right down to it, I don’t believe it’s that much. Steve Jobs, sure. But others, I’m not so sure. I think culture and where the firm and industry are in their life-cycle can also be very important.
By my judgment isn’t what counts, it’s the market’s and Oracle’s market value has increased by $8 billion today. Henry Blodget notes that that’s about half of the $14 billion that HPQ lost when they fired Hurd.

Posted by on September 7th, 2010 at 10:02 am


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