As some of you know, Boeing's CEO, Harry Stonecipher was fired by the Board because of an affair with an executive!

Being the CEO of a large company, is as close as us mortals can get to being a king, and such a fall is EXTREMELY depressing!

Isn't it a lot easier to have a liaison with a provider, in a highly discreet manner, rather than one to risk his thrown!!!???

Stonecipher obviously was getting old and losing his mind!  Sitting atop of Boeing, means having top secret clearence, or even higher than that!  This affair was a total no no!

-- Modified on 3/8/2005 6:04:02 PM

Reownfall of Stonecipher, Boeing CEO, an Affair, and the role of Providers!

I have no problem w/firing of Stonecipher. I just don't understand why the women executive he was having consensual sex with was not fired.

The affair was not a violation of his ethics clause, seeing a provider would most certainly have been.  

Not sure what Boeing's ethics clause says, but most major corporations, not all, have all employees sign some form of a "Code of Conduct", or "Code of Ethics". The one I signed years ago was nebulous at best. The guy leaves Boeing w/a $700K annual pension, and over 1 million options. He will have plenty of money to hobby with now. Talking about execs, or in the case a former exec, how about Carly Fiorina of HP. There is one hot looking woman.

virtually single-handedly brought down Lucent and then HP with her various schemes. As a bonus, she helped to wipe out the great Bell Labs (at Lucent) and most of the Research & Development work at HP.

If you're looking at why the U.S. is rapidly turning into a 3rd world country, you don't have too look much further than CEO's like Fiorina, hot or not.

-- Modified on 3/11/2005 6:21:57 PM

-- Modified on 3/12/2005 8:11:03 AM

Companies have clauses that do cover us in our private lives. My company has a clause that explicitly states that an employee can be terminated for bringing bad publicity for the company through their actions. So if I am caught with and escort or exposed as a hobbyists and that brings bad publicity to my company, I would almost surely be either severely reprimanded, with loss of position and/or pay, or I would be fired outright. What happens would depend to some extent on my management and my intrinsic asset value to the company and my position relative to public view, if I am valuable, then I will get slapped around publicly and get heavy behind the scene punishment, but I would probaly have a job once the dust clears.
I would think that if the CEO of a company like Boeing, given the nature of it's business was caught soliciting and escort, he or she would be fired outright, although with a pile of cash pushed out the door behind them. If the CEO of a company that has a counter-culture edge to it and does not rely on the public's perception of it gets caught with an escort, the man or woman would probaly retain their job without much concern.

All of the great US industrial companies were started by technologists that had a passion for delivering a product that they realized that the public needed. For several decades now, companies are increasingly being led by marketing or Finance people, such as Fiorina. Those people do great jobs when they understand the importance of technology development in their companies. There exceptional examples, such as the Marketing guy that brought IBM back from the brink after technical types had almost run it into the ground, but the majority have no understanding of or appreciation for nurturing technical and scientic efforts when the benefit of doing so is not obvious.

In the case of HP, you could tell that the company was in dire straits (even if you didn't know anything about the merger with Compaq), just by the way they were marketing their printer cartridges.

For years under Fiorina, these cartridges came in a big honking plastic cover, which was about 4-5 times larger than the cartridges themselves. There was no real reason for this, except that it provided space for a huge HP advertising 'banner'. Complete waste for those of us who just wanted to buy the cartridges. Almost at the same time that Fiorina was dumped, the cartridges now come in recyclable cardboard packages, no larger than the cartridge itself.

the affair was NOT a violation of the eithics clause.

Hiring an escort for sex is illegal and WOULD HAVE been a violation.

An excuse to get rid of dead weight.

Is it easier to hide an affair, or is it easier to have a liaison with a provider?

Boeing is a major defense company.  Neither action will be tolerated, or should be tolerated.  

Fine have a morality clause.  Fine refuse to hire (or to fire) those who break the law.  BUT
Defense or not,
our bedrooms are nobody's business but our own!  At least...
that is how it should be.
: (

Two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want behind closed doors without having to answer to the public. Answering to his wife is another story, acts do, and should have consequences, but losing your job? Come on now, it's time for the moral police to go back to ruining polictical careers and stay out of the private sector.

http://english.pravda.ru/fun/2002/07/08/32009.html

http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/15/164536.shtml

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-74-69-147/people/munsinger/clip1

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/experience/spies/interviews/wolf/

Ever heard of "industrial espionage"?

http://money.msn.co.uk/investing/Insight/SpecialFeatures/ActiveInvestor/Corporateespionage/default.asp

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/03/08/1110160794530.html?oneclick=true

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2001/07/20/0000094883

So we're going to fire every CEO, and or politician who screws around on their wife? Give me a break. The woman in question was not a minor, a direct subordinate, a foriegn national, or anyone else that could possibly be construed as anyone else's business except for his wife. If she wants to put up with it, ala Hilary Clinton, that's her business. Not yours, not mine.