• Basho hired former Accenture CTO Don Rippert in In June of last year.
• Opscode hired Mitch Hill, formerly of Accenture, and most recently served as  CEO of Avanade, a technology services joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft.
• Zenoss Founder and CEO Bill Karpovitch is a pioneer in the realm of cloud computing. Earlier in his career, he spent five years as an Accenture executive where he led architecture and development of large-scale OSS/BSS applications for global telecommunications providers.

Dave Rich said in his time at Accenture he often encountered CEOs of startups who were either technically brilliant or super enthusiastic sales people. The technically brilliant people can demonstrate how their technology is superior but that is just an aspect of what is required to sell into the enterprise. The CEO with a sales pedigree may be overly optimistic, which leads to its own set of issues.

In his role, Rich said he acts as foil. There has to be the right balance between entrepreneurialism and managing the business.  Venture capitalists really need that expertise as it’s all about managing the burn. He said that’s something  you learn at Accenture.

Accenture executives play the role of advocate for both innovation and what’s right for the customer. They know that balance and can  bring that understanding into the startup.

“In many ways we have been running startups inside businesses,” Rich said.

Don Rippert retired as Accenture’s CTO on June 3o after 30 years working at the company. On July 1, he started work as CEO at Basho.

“I was working with a lot of small, innovative companies that wanted to be incdued in Accenture solutions that Accenture would sell,” Rippert said in an interview this week. “I would identify them. I got to know quite a few. I got to know the startups and the people. I  learned one of the biggest hurdles for startups is thinking through how to sell to large enterprises.”

It’s the message that matters, Rippert said. Accenture executives are trained to help customers think through solutions.

“You are accustomed to saying ‘this will save you this much – this will generate this additonal revenue,’ ” Rippert said.

It is an adjustment for the startup when an Acccenture executive joins its ranks. Basho employees expressed some reservations about hiring an Accenture executive. But they accepted him. They essentially wanted to see if he had the chops to be their CEO. He said he was able to do that by proving to them he understood the technology.

It also helps that Rippert is steadfast about keeping the company’s hacker culture intact.

“There was a bit of a concern that there would be people with suits and ties coming in, that’s the last thing i need,” he said.

Basho has a particular focus on the DevOps culture and how it is emerging. DevOps looks at the ways developers and operations people work together to deploy and manage apps. It’s a cultural mix in some ways similar to the new services focus that Accenture executives bring to technology companies.

Opscode Founder Jesse Robbins and CEO Mitch Hill

Opscode’s story is in many ways what Rich and Rippert describe. The companies needed a CEO who could take the company to the next level. And the founder, in this case, Jesse Robbins, now acts as the chief community manager for the company, overseeing Opscode and Chef, the open-source community driven recipes that provide IT with ways to automate and provide integration framework built specifically for automating the cloud.  Robbins now gets to do what he does best with a Mitch Hill, a CEO who has a proven track record.

And Zenoss? CEO Bill Karpovich received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011 Maryland Award in the Emerging company category. He has been featured on the cover of InformationWeek and has led the companty from startup to category leader in the IT management software market.

Not bad, huh?

Why Revolution Analytics, Basho, Opscode and Zenoss Have Former Accenture Executives as CEOs is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• 3 Resources for Getting Started with Zenoss
• DevOps/CloudOps: The Emerging IT Model

• 5 Open Source Startups to Watch in 2012 # 4: Opscode
• Dell Open-Sources Code for Hadoop Deployment Tool
• DevOps Dossier: PagerDuty
• Revolution Analytics Finds a New CEO

Apple Computer, the company Jobs with longtime friend Steve Wozniak changed the world of personal computing forever, laying the groundwork for Apple to become the innovative leader in the industry, and one of the most recognizable and successful brands of all time – while old companies like HP have steadily lost their mojo.

Jobs tenure at Apple is certainly storied. He was one fired by the company’s board and investor Venrock, only to return a decade later as CEO in an effort to resurrect an organization which was left in ruin by poor leadership and failed products.  Steve Jobs brought back his vision and experience back to Apple, and led the biggest comeback in the history of modern industry.

As Steve Jobs now steps down, he leaves Apple in the hands of Tim Cook, who was previously the company’s  previously Chief Operating Officer. Jobs was named Chairman of the Board, and Cook will join the Board, effective immediately.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple’s Board. “Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.”

“The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO,” added Levinson. “Tim’s 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does.”

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Apple is the gold standard.  While HP struggles to figure out how to compete and execute Apple is flying high.  What a contrast.  Steve turned his company into the best and brighest tech computer company in the world.  That was his dream.  He took a computer and made it fashionable.

One thing that I am thinking about is that maybe HP might consider puttingSteve on their board and start selling Apple hardware and own the enterprise together.  For the folks not old enough to remember both Steve Woz and Steve Jobs worked at HP.  It was at HP where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard allowed Woz to experiment and use HP parts to build the first prototype.

[Disclosure: Many of my friends work at Apple and Steve and his wife Laurene were angel investors in my last company PodTech a failed podcasting startup born out of the class of 2005 venture backed podcasting companies.  Those companies included my company PodTech,  Evan William's Odeo, Adam Curry's PodShow, and Murgesh Navar, Podbridge.  Ironically all of those companies failed because of the disruptive nature of Apple and iTunes. - JF]

Update:

AllThingsD one of my favorite tech blogs has a great essay from Walt Mossberg on Steve Jobs.  http://allthingsd.com/20110824/jobs-leave-a-legacy-of-changed-industries/

I don’t want to call Walt and old timer because I’m an old timer by today’s standards but Walt has been close to Apple for two decades.  He’s been up close and personal with Apple and Jobs.  He nails it in this essay and his video commentary.

End of An Era: Steve Jobs Resigns As Apple CEO – Tim Cook Steps in is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• A Genius behind THE Genius: Tim Cook
• What a Jobs-less Apple Can Learn from Bill Gates
• Cook Inherits Apple, What Happens to the Ensemble Now?
• Will Tim Cook’s Apple Be More Enterprise Friendly?
• Apple Reports Earnings this Evening, In the Wake of Jobs’s Medical Leave Analysts Not Concerned
• Steve Jobs Medical Leave Stirs Speculation about Apple’s Direction

Ryan made a good point on the show that looking at some of the largest success stories in Silicon Valley right now, such as Facebook and Apple, it appears that you do need to be a jerk to win.

I disagreed. Being a jerk has nothing to do with success. In this business it is teams that win — not individuals. If you are a jerk it quickly gets around and people will avoid you, they will choose to work elsewhere given the choice.

The HP Way…

Ethical behavior is very important. We have some great examples of companies that have done very well and where their founders did not engage in questionable ethics, or were jerks. Hewlett-Packard, Silicon Valley’s oldest, and one of its largest companies provides a great example.

Its founders created the “HP Way” a blueprint for treating staff with respect and encouraging an ethical way of doing business.

For example, Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, once worked at HP and that experience influenced his behavior at Apple.

Here is a quote from an interview with Steve Wozniak, found in Jessica Livingston’s book “Founders at Work: Stories of Startup’s Early Days.”

When we went public, I was a little disturbed that 5 people who had been with us in our little office from the start and had been so important–Randy Wigginton, Chris Espinosa, a couple of young kids, and a couple of older ones just hadn’t gotten any stock.

I felt that they were a part of this whole energy and excitement and passion for what computers were going to be and what we were doing and how right it was… So I gave each of those 5 a large amount of stock, probably a million dollars in that day.

Ms. Livingston tells him “that was so generous.”

Mr Wozniak cites HP.

It’s that whole thing I was talking about: Hewlett-Packard, we’re a community. There was a recession in ’73 and Hewlett-Packard had to cut back 10%. Instead of laying off 10% of the people, they cut everyone’s salary by 10% and gave us one day off every two weeks. So basically they said “nobody goes without a job.” And I like that sort of thing.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs didn’t have the benefit of the same experience of working at an ethical company.

He famously short-changed Mr Wozniak when he sold a game to Atari, paying him just a few hundred dollars and keeping thousands for himself.

Mr. Wozniak didn’t find out about it until 12 years later, and he generously dismissed the incident, saying, “He probably needed the money. And I didn’t; I had an engineering job at Hewlett-Packard.”

Monkey see, monkey do…

Intel is another example. It is incredibly successful yet its founders and its top management have never generated reports of jerk behavior, or questionable ethics. Yes, Craig Barrett, a former CEO and chairman, was sometimes reported to shout a bit, but that’s about as bad as it gets at Intel.

And there are many more examples of good companies than bad in Silicon Valley. But it’s important to point to both.

“Monkey see, monkey do,” applies to us too, we teach each new generation by example. If young people are looking at movies such as the “Social Network” to learn how to succeed in Silicon Valley, then it’s important to provide them with a bigger picture and one that’s rooted in reality rather than a scriptwriter’s fantasy.

Startup life is a tough life, most startups will fail, which is why young entrepreneurs should focus on having fun, they shouldn’t have to worry about screwing each other over, or engaging in scammy business practices to make a buck.

Young entrepreneurs are drawn to Silicon Valley because they want to make a big difference in the world. I know of none that came here because their ambition was to be a jerk and to screw customers.

I’m glad that Ryan and CNBC have helped to bring this topic into a public forum because it is an important one.

Pay the piper…

I have no doubt that unethical leaders and companies will pay the price. A study by IBM has shown that Millennials are very much concerned with working for companies doing the right thing; and the Edelman Trust Barometer for 2011 shows an extremely high focus on social responsibility by customers of companies.

People care about where they work, they want to work for cool companies not scammy, unethical ones. Is anyone proud of having Enron on their resume?

Moral pygmies

Yahoo paid a big price when it conspired with Chinese authorities to help uncover the source of a leaked document that directed Chinese publications not to write about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests.

Yahoo handed over information that resulted in the arrest of two people, who received ten year prison sentences in a hard labor camp.

Yahoo was accused of acting as a “police informer” by Reporters without Borders. And House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, called Yahoo management “moral pygmies.”

I knew from my contacts that there was a lot of unhappiness about Yahoo’s role in China among its rank and file. It’s not cool to work for a “police informer” let alone “moral pygmies.”

You could make a good case, and I certainly did, for pegging Yahoo’s slide in its fortunes to this incident — a slide that wiped out tens of billions of dollars in shareholder value because staff morale had been badly affected.

Advice for startups…

Here’s some great advice to startups from Steve Wozniak:

First of all, try to have the highest of ethics and to be open and truthful about things, not hiding… Don’t mislead people.

Know in your heart that you are a good person with good goals because that will carry over to your own self-confidence and your belief in your engineering abilities. Always seek excellence.

Or you can be a jerk. It’s your choice. But remember posterity because others will remember what you did. And today there are so many new ways for the truth to come out.

Steve Jobs is facing his mortality — how do you think he feels, knowing that millions of people know that he acted like a jerk and cheated his business partner?

[Cross-posted at Silicon Valley Watcher]

Do Jerks Do Better In Silicon Valley? is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Capiche? Y Combinator Finds a Key Metric for Success
• Interview: Peter Hirshberg and San Francisco’s Innovative Gray Area Foundation for the Arts
• Breathing and Succeeding in the Startup Life
• Crowdpark Bets on Social Wagers, VCs Bet $6m
• Zaarly: Searching for Gold in Hyper-Local Commerce
• StartupWatch: Engine Yard Moves Beyond Rails To PHP

These new appointments take effect November 1, according to the company’s released statement.

Apotheker served at SAP for over 20 years, leading it to become a globally recognized brand. With a range of experience sectors in R&D and a background in technology platforms, he will become quite a resource for HP in its latest strategy towards growth in new areas.

HP already has its sights set high for the upcoming challenges, putting projections for next year’s revenue higher than expected. During its analyst event this week, HP has been decidedly mum about a new CEO until now, wrapping up a chapter in the executive saga that spilled over into a fight for 3PAR’s chunk of the cloud. HP can work towards refocusing its vision around mobile and cloud sectors.

“I’m surprised that they went with an outsider, but I can understand why they did it,” says SiliconANGLE editor John Furrier.  “HP is clearly sending a message to the marketplace that they are focused on execution and innovation. His R&D background and transformative experience in his resume speaks to the problem HP has with their innovation image.

“This is precisely what HP needs – an operational leader who gets technology. This is exactly what I predicted in my previous posts. The other angle on this is that HP is a massive corporate conglomerate with each group essentially it’s own company. Gone are the days of the rock star CEO for HP. Now it’s about performance and tuning the engine of HP, both financial and product-wise. The real power at HP will lie with the division heads like Dave Donatelli, who heads up the converged infrastructure group roughly a $40b business unit.

“At the end of the day the old HP way is long gone and now it’s time for them to find the new HP way. I hope that the spirit of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard can find their way into that new way. That was a vision of corporate innovation, technology, R&D, citizenship, respect for the individual, and financial performance. That will be the standard in which I will be judging the new CEO and his direct reports of general managers (quasi-CEOs).”

Another cloud company, FalconStor, had some executive shake-ups as well. Jim McNiel is the company’s interim CEO, as ReiJane Huai has stepped down.  Below, find HP’s full release:

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 30, 2010

---

The Board of Directors of HP today announced the election of Léo Apotheker as Chief Executive Officer and President. Apotheker, who previously served as CEO of SAP, will also join HP’s Board of Directors. The Board also elected Ray Lane, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as a new member of the Board and designated him as non-executive Chairman. Both elections are effective November 1.

During Apotheker’s more than 20 years at SAP, he was a driving force in making it the largest business software applications company in the world. Apotheker helped develop and implement the most significant changes in SAP history. During his tenure, he transformed R&D and technology platforms and expanded business models and customer segments. Apotheker also helped lead SAP to 18 consecutive quarters of double-digit software revenue growth between 2004 and 2009.

Lane has served on the Board of Directors of more than 20 public and private companies and joined Kleiner Perkins in 2000. Previously, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer at Oracle Corporation. Earlier in his career, Lane also worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, EDS and IBM.

“Léo is a strategic thinker with a passion for technology, wide-reaching global experience and proven operational discipline – exactly what we were looking for in a CEO,” said Robert Ryan, lead independent director of the Board. “After more than two decades in the industry, he has a strong track record of driving technological innovation, building customer relationships and developing world-class teams.”

Ryan continued, “Léo has been a leader in anticipating the transformation taking place in our industry, and we believe he is uniquely positioned to help accelerate HP’s strategy. He has demonstrated success in the U.S. market and also has vast international experience – which will be a major asset as HP continues to expand globally, particularly in high-growth emerging markets. HP has the right assets and market positions, and now we have the best team to realize the company’s enormous potential.”

“HP has a powerful mix of businesses, products and services, one of the most innovative cultures in the industry, and an accomplished management team who have played a critical role in its success,” said Apotheker. “I am deeply honored to be joining the more than 300,000 dedicated HP employees.”

Apotheker continued, “Given HP’s diversified products and services, its financial strength, and its leadership position across markets, no other company is as well positioned to drive – and profit from – the revolutionary changes under way in the marketplace. As we move forward, HP will continue to be a valued partner with our customers as well as a fierce competitor. I look forward to working with the outstanding people at HP to write the next chapter in the company’s long and proud history.”

“I am excited to join the Board of this pioneering company, and look forward to working closely with Léo – and the rest of the Board and senior management team – as they capitalize on the changes taking place across the industry,” Lane said. “I have known and admired Léo for almost 20 years. He is ideally suited to build on HP’s strong foundation, leverage its many assets and keep the company at the forefront of innovation.”

Apotheker will succeed Cathie Lesjak, who was named interim CEO in August 2010. Lesjak, who has served as HP’s Chief Financial Officer since January 2007, remains CFO and continues to serve as a member of the Executive Council. Ryan said, “Cathie is and will continue to be an important part of HP. We are extremely fortunate to have one of the deepest, most talented senior management teams in the industry and to have someone of Cathie’s caliber lead HP during this interim period. On behalf of the entire Board, I would like to thank Cathie and our senior management team for maintaining HP’s focus on serving customers and continuing to execute our strategy.”

Ray Lane Has A Purpose For HP
@billsaysthis points out something worth noting …the Oracle angle with Ray Lane.

Here is my angle. It’s all about Mark Hurd. Getting Ray Lane puts a political checks and balance on Hurd. Why? Hurd has the deep secrets and battleplan for HP. HP and Oracle recently reached a settlement over Hurd’s knowledge of HP trade secrets and IP. That being said everyone knows that Hurd could leak it to folks internally to Oracle. Having Ray Lane on the board gives HP deep access to many relationships at Oracle that will enable HP to keep an eye on Hurd. HP will be on the look out for any movement for Hurd. If Hurd blinks BOOM HP will jam him hard.

Having Ray to watch out for Hurd will be the primary objective. Lane secondary purpose will be to bring a software perspective. He has tons of experience in the industry (software) where HP needs the most help going forward. Help in the form of managing the new CEO who is from SAP and for positioning HP in the ever growing “new” software market from infrastructure to applications to mobile devices.

Thanks to @billsaysthis for tweeting – he sparked this angle. Thanks Bill

HP’s New CEO: Leo Apotheker of SAP is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• HP Head’s Push May be what the Company Needs, Though Investors Remain Doubtful
• Hewlett-Packard Sued for Mark Hurd Scandal Repercussions
• Could Whitman’s Entrée Be A Good Sign for HP Itanium? Users Hope So
• Whitman Named HP’s 3rd CEO in Two Years
• Will SAPphire Shine Once Again?: The Best of 2010
• 2010 Round Up: Mister Ellison’s Wild Ride

This alternatively funded CEO describes other CEO’s that seek VC funding as idiots – with a 1 in a 1000 shot at a lousy valuation (52% Round A, 25% Round B and 15% Round C). He continues that many of the serial entrepreneurs trumpeted by VC’s have no money themselves despite “successful” previous exits.

He is not alone about the ineffectiveness of Venture Capital, I frequently hear from other successful entrepreneurs about it. And the situation may get worse before it gets better. The economy is offering VCs even more excuses to turn the screws, and control of companies is gained in more ways than a simple equity stake.

I believe technology investing today is largely a sub-prime asset class as described in a plethora of sub-prime articles in this blog, and find many entrepreneurs discouraged by both the process as well as the outcome of fundraising, even when that yielded a round.

Because of the ineffectiveness of VC and the rampant false positives and false negatives I refuse to believe VCs (and the NVCA collectively), who suggest that the sum of Venture Capital equals the sum of technology innovation. We see great entrepreneurs actively pursuing more creative investment vehicles (high-net-worth individuals, private equity firms, investment bankers, sovereign funds…anyone with money), and rightfully so.

In the meantime, oblivious to recognizing their own flaws, VCs are further descending down the sub-prime spiral by restricting investments to compliant entrepreneurs, evidence that they remain clueless about the fundamental risk management of high yield returns.

Smart CEOs should simply refuse to work with many technology investors for the following reasons:

- Exorbitant loss of upside
Great entrepreneurs are known for their passion to pursue their dreams at virtually any cost, and sub-prime VCs smell their blood and desperation. Those companies become owned by VCs quickly and because of the investors’ lack of relevant operating experience yields a further deflation of the valuation of the company. We’ve seen many companies with end-game founder stock way below 5%, which is unlikely to become life-changing. So, why would you take the scrutiny of the CEO job with that outcome in mind?

- Indirect loss of control
Voting rights as well as other fine print in the termsheet severely impact your ability as a CEO to disrupt a market. While in the beginning the founders may still own the majority of the shares, the dependance on further runway support gives VCs the ammo to press their preferred operational trajectory and leaves operational decisions at the mercy of its first investors.

- Restrictive expenditures
The powers of the CEO are further restricted by clauses on expenditures in either the articles of incorporation, termsheets, voting rights or other legal documents. We’ve seen restrictions requiring board approval for expenditures as little as $5,000. That means a CEO can’t make pressing decisions until a next board meeting or when there is an ability to call an impromptu session. These restrictions are further evidence that a CEO does not have the trust of the board.

- Insufficient ecosystem control
Investors typify investments in technology waves (witnessed by their mindless herding at technology focused events) and blindly allocate certain expenditure expectations to R&D, marketing, business development and sales divisions. But the ecosystem of every company, regardless of segment, is unique to that company. CEOs who let VCs determine or validate the ecosystem expenditures will spend the subsequent board meetings explaining why they deviated from that, a waste of precious time.

- Deal with undeserved authority
Many VCs do not have the credentials and relevant operating experience to lead an experienced CEO. Yet it behooves the CEO to listen to the idiosyncrasies of the VC in order for them to endorse a CEO’s leadership. Nothing is worse for a company’s future than having to wait for the investor to validate every step along the way.

- Micro-economically sandwiched
Technology founders and VCs are often focused on building technology, very few investors pay close attention to the macro-economic differentiation (and valuation), leaving intelligent CEO left to drive a more sustainable big picture strategy with limited board and back-end support.

- Forced syndicates
Investors with early stakes can essentially force the company to engage with other VCs in subsequent rounds that favor the initial investor, rather than the entrepreneur. Many VCs huddle together in like-minded "vulture" strategies in the hopes of maximizing their often ill-performing portfolio.

- Damaging to reputation
The valley is so small and ignoring the advice from an investor can have detrimental effect on a CEO’s future career. The "you will never work in this town again" syndrome is not unique to Hollywood, it is alive and well in Silicon Valley. The word spreads quickly when you challenge VCs and don’t accept their terms, a reason why they tell you not to shop valuations around – it will actually hurt you.

- Sticky lawyers
We’ve inherited bad ones in companies we ran and found some good ones. But in many cases lawyers in Silicon Valley pretend they actually created the companies, simply because they filed their incorporation paperwork or attended board meetings. They mingle with the money sources and make the introduction to VCs that secure their billing runway. They end up getting cosy with the major shareholders and tilting the balance even further away from the CEO who signs their checks. Another entity to keep in check as a CEO.

- Low salary
Opportunity rather than salary is top of mind to entrepreneurs, but that changes quickly when they struggle to support their families and pay mortgages. $175K is not a salary that leaves much on the table, especially not when you live in the expensive area around Sandhill Road. And VCs are challenging those salaries even more while they are raking in astronomical fees associated with their large funds and sitting pretty for the next ten years. The risk/reward equation between VC and entrepreneur is completely out of whack.

- Poor severances
Board-run companies leave CEOs in a vulnerable state once its collective wisdom does not pan out. The blame for that failure is usually generously applied to the CEO, while the decision making power was not. An early stage CEO should consider himself lucky if the company can still honor its pre-negotiated severance obligation.

Pimps and Hoes
The current venture climate reminds me of the fascinating HBO documentary Pimps Up, Hoes Down in which the undeserved authority of Pimps is applied to the Hoes who do all the (dirty) work.

No self respecting CEO should accept the constriction deployed by sub-prime Venture Capital as described above. The outcome of the current entrepreneurial restrictions is not only highly predictable but has thankfully reached the balance sheets of fund-managers and Limited Partners, who fund the VCs and are starting to question the role of the VC as the intermediary.

The downturn in the economy masks the unrelated impending implosion of Venture Capital. No VC should use the economy as the excuse for the restrictions above and as a CEO you should read its deployment for what it is; a diminished faith in you and the company.

So, unless you can reach a great VC independently or with help from others quickly, my suggestion is to wait with testing your CEO skills until Venture Capital, not the economy recovers. If you can.

In the meantime I’ll do my best to help fund-managers revive Venture Capital. It is about time the fund-managers hear the entrepreneur’s point of view. That has become my new mission.

[Editor’s Note: George cross posted this at VentureCompany. –mrh]

Idiot CEOs is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Massively Multiplayer Online Games as a Model for Business Collaboration
• Why Revolution Analytics, Basho, Opscode and Zenoss Have Former Accenture Executives as CEOs
• Facebook Games Helped Create 182K New Jobs
• Latest Flash Storage Entrant Gunning for the Very High End
• End of An Era: Steve Jobs Resigns As Apple CEO – Tim Cook Steps in
• Summer 2011 Merger Overview

The SAP Executive Board, in agreement with the SAP Supervisory Board, has appointed two Co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, both already members of the SAP Executive Board.

Dennis Howlett, on ZDNet, writes that Mr Apotheker’s departure wasn’t unexpected. But it was surprising that the company acted so soon.

The choice of new leaders should not be surprising but hardly imaginative. In effect, SAP has chosen ‘last men standing’ rather than taking what some of us thought might be a bold move by appointing an outsider.

SAP is headquartered in Germany and has a large presence in Silicon Valley. The company beat analyst estimates for Q4 but profits fell 12% and revenues were down 9% from a year ago.

It Takes Two Men to Replace SAP CEO Léo Apotheker is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• HP’s New CEO: Leo Apotheker of SAP
• New SAP Products Coincide with Oracle Demands for IP Case
• Google Loses in the Latest Development from the Oracle Java Case
• Why Revolution Analytics, Basho, Opscode and Zenoss Have Former Accenture Executives as CEOs
• SAP Continues HANA Migration to SMB Application
• For the CFO – ERP in the Cloud [Infographic]