HP "The Witch" Carly Fiorina is still the leader I'd say.
How arrogant do you have to be to think you will overtake the iPad in sales over a single quarter.
I wonder if that is because the skills and values needed to climb the corporate ladder to Executive positions are fundamentally different from those of Founders that formed their ethos in the broader society, outside of the ladder-climbing environment.
This hypothesis has interesting implications for founders that wish their companies to be reflective of their ethos over time. Suddenly the Japanese practice of adopting successors to leadership instead of hereditary succession makes a lot more sense - valuing temperament over bloodline. It also completely bypasses the issues with internal promotions in a hierarchical structure.
Debian is interesting with their use of an alternate operating model and democratically elected leadership.
Given how long-lasting companies can become destructive to the societies that they operate in, it seems to be that Society has a vested interest in solving this problem of companies losing their soul. Maybe there are corporate structures that can be designed to minimize these issues? Anyone aware of research or proposals in this area?
That's a great point. Might be splitting hairs a little bit here - but the question must be asked - if the ethos of the Successors are fundamentally different from those of the Founders, maybe the "change the culture" is deliberate, to align with the ethos of the Successors?
There's an additional factor at play here: age. The Founders of the two companies - HP and Google - were in their 20s at the time of founding. The Successors were likely much older (40s? 50s?) when they took over - it takes time to climb to the Executive positions. How much of an impact that simple number (Age at Founding/Succession) would have had on what culture would be fostered. It would be really interesting to see a macro study on cultures at companies 1-5 years from Founding/Succession, grouped by age decade (20s, 30s, 40s) at founding/succession. Dell and Apple could be case studies onto themselves because their founders left and then came back at a different age.