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Dell's tainted soul
August 17, 2007
Last week, Dell let it be known that it would bestow on its former CEO, Kevin Rollins, a payment of nearly $50 million for unexercised stock options. That was on top of a golden-parachute severance payment of $5 million that Rollins received when he was ousted six months earlier. This week Dell revealed that, under Rollins's watch, it engaged in a high-level conspiracy to defraud investors by faking its earnings reports.
In April 2006, Rollins gave a speech at the University of Texas at Austin, sponsored by a campus religious group, in which he touted his and his company's high ethical standards. The college newspaper reported on the speech:
Dell Computers uses strict ethical standards and whistle-blowing procedures to ensure that its employees maintain the highest standard of integrity, said Dell's president and CEO in a speech on campus Tuesday night.
Kevin Rollins, who took over as president and CEO of Dell in 2004, said the company has a set of guidelines called "The Soul of Dell" that tells employees how to act ethically. The rules seem very simplistic and easy, but they take on new meaning in light of the exposure of misconduct at Enron Corporation, he said.
Dell operates on a "one strike, and you're out" policy, Rollins said. If an employee commits one breach of ethics, he or she is fired. They are held to a higher standard than simply following the law, he said.
"If you want to operate another way, leave, because we do not want to have that at our company. We do not want to be tainted," Rollins said.
Talk is cheap. If Kevin Rollins wants to maintain his own integrity as well as that of his former company, he should return the $50 million to the Dell shareholders who were cheated while he was in charge.
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Comments
It's a case of truth in advertising:
to ensure that its employees maintain the highest standard of integrity
Rollins was not an empoyee in the colloquial sense, even if tax law has a formally different take on the matter.
-t
Posted by: Tom Lord ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.roughtype.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 17, 2007 07:18 PM
What’s Next after Web 2.0?
I do not like those buzz words like Web 2.0, Business 2.0 etc., however in order to communication, you have to conform to their protocols, otherwise they might think you are speaking in a foreign language. So far Web 2.0/Internet 1.0 lead by Youtube, FaceBook, same Amazon, New Yahoo! and New Google is successful, though at not successful as Web 1.0/Internet 0.0 led by Old Yahoo!, Ebay, Amazon and Old Google. Why? Not a big surprise anymore when from Web 1.0/Internet 0.0 to Web 2.0/Internet 1.0 as opposed from nothing to Web 1.0/Internet 0.0.
I believe the next after Web 2.0/Internet 1.0 is Web 3.0/Internet 2.0, however we’d better to call it Internet 2.0, since at that time, Web is not that important any more. Why?
Web 1.0/Internet 0.0 - Informed, you as a reader
Web 2.0/Internet 1.0 - Inform, you as a writer
Internet 2.0 (as opposed as Web 3.0/Internet 2.0) - formation of Information, you as a reader, writer, and much more
- BTW I am writing this post while I am watching a lecture C++0x (yes, C++0x) on at Univ. of Waterloo made by Prof. Bjarne Stroustrup - Prof. Stroustrup, think about C++ 3.0, borrow somthing nice from Ruby, the world is way too different now as opposed to 1980s
Frontier Space - http://www.hwswworld.com/space
Frontier Blog - http://www.hwswworld.com/wp
Posted by: edward at August 20, 2007 05:21 AM
Don Carty, current CFO at Dell left his CEO position at American Airlines after protests for setting aside bonuses for key execs while asking the unions for concessions.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/apr2003/nf20030424_0015_db042.htm
You think he would have learned from that and will push for Rollins to return some of the bonus...
Posted by: vinnie mirchandani at August 20, 2007 09:26 AM
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