Should the CEO's behind HD DVD be fired?

[tron3]

Should the CEO's behind HD DVD be fired? I could give many reasons as to why say yes, but then I taint the poll.

You decide, you vote.

Edit:

I should point out those "qualifying statements" after the choices are mostly there for filler and/or humor in some cases. You can say yes or no for any reason you wish.

[JTK]

Yes.

Anyone that perpetrated this horrible fraud on the world of consumer electronics should see consequences, especially anyone who's been out to deliberately lie and mislead.

Discernment has to be used. You had some people who were/are just doing their jobs with no ill intent.

[I DO BLU]

Yes and they should pay the company back for the money it lost due to them.

[york weir]

If a company fired a CEO for a failed endeavor there would be a lot of executives out of work.

Do you think Howard Stringer should have been held accountable when Sony had to recall 5.8 million laptop batteries?

[Uxi]

There's an old saying: "authority can be delegated, but responsibility cannot."

Specifically, a CEO isn't necessarily responsible for QC failures (such as batteries), unless specifically ordering shortcuts to made and consequences be damned and the like. A CEO is most definitely responsible for a strategic direction such as format exclusivity.

PR people, marketing goons, technical types... obviously none of them should be accoutable for the strategic decisions of a company. The CEO and the board are another story, however.

[york weir]

Originally Posted by Uxi

There's an old saying: "authority can be delegated, but responsibility cannot."

Specifically, a CEO isn't necessarily responsible for QC failures (such as batteries), unless specifically ordering shortcuts to made and consequences be damned and the like. A CEO is most definitely responsible for a strategic direction such as format exclusivity.

PR people, marketing goons, technical types... obviously none of them should be accoutable for the strategic decisions of a company. The CEO and the board are another story, however.

In a publicly traded company the CEO is held accountable.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by york weir

If a company fired a CEO for a failed endeavor there would be a lot of executives out of work.

Do you think Howard Stringer should have been held accountable when Sony had to recall 5.8 million laptop batteries?

Maybe executives would excercise better judgement if some did get fired for poor management. Why should someone get rewarded for bad business? There are too many lousy execs that have run companies into the ground and then had golden parachutes to retire with. They ruin other people's lives, both employees and stockholders and then they should get away with it? Wow. If that is true, no one should EVER get fired for anything.

As far as the Sony battery thing. Who was responsible for that? How do you know it was a bad choice by Stringer?

[york weir]

Originally Posted by radagast

Maybe executives would excercise better judgement if some did get fired for poor management. Why should someone get rewarded for bad business? There are too many lousy execs that have run companies into the ground and then had golden parachutes to retire with. They ruin other people's lives, both employees and stockholders and then they should get away with it? Wow. If that is true, no one should EVER get fired for anything.

As far as the Sony battery thing. Who was responsible for that? How do you know it was a bad choice by Stringer?

Who's to say the CEO didn't greenlight HD DVD as a way to ensure confusion and to keep DVD strong?

I brought up the batteries as a means to show an extreme failure that cost millions and the resulting accountability. If we have to narrow it down to a failed media there aren't too many examples to pull from.

But I do agree CEO's get too many golden parachutes.

[cpgator]

Originally Posted by york weir

If a company fired a CEO for a failed endeavor there would be a lot of executives out of work.

Do you think Howard Stringer should have been held accountable when Sony had to recall 5.8 million laptop batteries?

Exactly. If Sony fired CEOs for every failed format, they wouldn't have any left.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by cpgator

Exactly. If Sony fired CEOs for every failed format, they wouldn't have any left.

But this format is a BIG deal. It's not a petty thing like a memory stick vs memory card, or USB. Adaptors and slot add-ins allow the reading of ALL these formats. Not so with High Def Media. You HAD TO HAVE one or the other. This IS a billion dollar business at stake. The loser should have bowed out ASAP as to get on with the money making. Hence...my original question.

[crystal_sun]

of course...someone needs to take full responsiblity of the millions/billions of dollars loss in the decision to start this war. a lot of money has been invested and loss....someone must pay for it.

[Blu-Raider]

IMO this is ridiculous.

If HD-DVD had been released as the only HDP format (and had no competition) we'd all own one and be here exalting it's virtues.

It was a good product...just not good enough.

[Anthony P]

some yes and some no, some CEOs and some none CEOs. I think Toshiba needs to clean house, I think someone at Universal and Viacom needs to get fired. The person responsible for the mess at MS already lost his job, so why pin it on the CEO.

[Smackos]

Hard one that.. Ultimately they came out with a product that they thought they could sell to the consumer. However, I picked yes not because they did that but because despite all signs showing they were loosing they continued to push it onto the public and spent a fortune promoting and trying to sell it without much success. You throw good money after bad then your an idiot. As a stock holder I'd be well and truelly pissed off and I'd want they're heads to roll over it, especially since they're still not officially finished with it yet.

Though.. can't be far off now though..

[Beta Man]

That's just a ridiculous question. Of Course Not.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

That's just a ridiculous question. Of Course Not.

Care to qualify this at all?

[JohnGalt]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

That's just a ridiculous question. Of Course Not.

+1 There were pro and con arguments on both sides for the entire duration of the format war. Any time a range of viable options presents itself folks, including highly skilled and educated folks, will choose sides and some will choose poorly. For most of the executives involved temporarily choosing HD-DVD has done little, if any, long term damage to their organizations. The sole exception is Toshiba who poured huge sums of money into a high-risk effort to corner a lucrative market. It's tough to find serious fault in decisions that will do essentially no long term damage; with respect to Toshiba there's certainly cause for shareholders to be displeased with their leadership's actions but they're so huge that this debacle will soon be forgotten for them as well. Win some, lose some.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

+1 There were pro and con arguments on both sides for the entire duration of the format war. Any time a range of viable options presents itself folks, including highly skilled and educated folks, will choose sides and some will choose poorly. For most of the executives involved temporarily choosing HD-DVD has done little, if any, long term damage to their organizations. The sole exception is Toshiba who poured huge sums of money into a high-risk effort to corner a lucrative market. It's tough to find serious fault in decisions that will do essentially no long term damage; with respect to Toshiba there's certainly cause for shareholders to be displeased with their leadership's actions but they're so huge that this debacle will soon be forgotten for them as well. Win some, lose some.

Good points.

I suspect any of us "yes" folks are thinking primarily of Toshiba and Microsoft.

[Monty22001]

Originally Posted by tron3

Should the CEO's behind HD DVD be fired? I could give many reasons as to why say yes, but then I taint the poll.

You decide, you vote.

Edit:

I should point out those "qualifying statements" after the choices are mostly there for filler and/or humor in some cases. You can say yes or no for any reason you wish.

Not so much the CEO's I think, but all the paid forum goons like amirm, kosty, and so on should be barred from working in the tech industry again for deluding people into buying the OBVIOUSLY inferior and DOA format.

[Anthony P]

Not so much the CEO's I think, but all the paid forum goons like amirm, kosty, and so on should be barred from working in the tech industry again for deluding people into buying the OBVIOUSLY inferior and DOA format.

I don't know how technical Amir was, on many occasions it was shown he had no idea what he was talking about (which made it easier for him to BS while playing innocent) but Kosty is definitely not a technical person. He works in Marketing.