Google and Microsoft GCs work Super Bowl Sunday
February 4, 2008 | Filed Under Deals, In the News
Yesterday, most of us were watching one long commercial interrupted by snippets of football. Not the GC of Microsoft, Brad Smith, or the CLO of Google, David Drummond, however.
Clearly deeply involved in the hostile offer for Yahoo, Mr. Smith struck first yesterday with a press release, noting that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would be a welcome competitor to Google in paid advertising and search, and offer additional benefits:
Microsoft is committed to openness, innovation, and the protection of privacy on the Internet. We believe that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! will advance these goals.
Not to let that comment just hang there in the ether unchallenged, Mr. Drummond followed up shortly with this posting in the Google corporate blog:
Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?
Later in the day, according to press reports, Google CEO Eric Schmidt “reached out” to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and offered to “help.”
A deal of this size is good for a flagging legal economy, at the very least.
Let the real games begin…
What if the Law were more like Lego?
January 28, 2008 | Filed Under Law 2.0, In the News
I realized this morning that I’m almost as old as Lego (R); today is the 50th anniversary of the little brick that sticks.
I was weaned on the old-school Lego, and my sons spent many a lazy afternoon with slightly upgraded versions as well (although they preferred the basic stuff). Today’s varieties are almost unrecognizable from where things started.
As you’d expect, Lego’s lawyers are watchful over those who would copy these iconic products.
So I got to thinking: what would the law be like if it were more like Lego? Here’s my top seven:
1. All the pieces would fit together.
2. You could share parts of it with others and it would always work.
3. The best things resulted when you didn’t follow the directions.
4. If you spent hours with it, it wouldn’t cost any more.
5. It worked as well alone or in a group.
6. You could extend it easily in new and creative ways.
7. And you could just as easily tear it apart and start over.
I did learn early on that the big red ones just look like hard candy.
Even Google today is getting into the act:
(Update: Gizmodo has a cool Lego timeline.
An Honorable Lawyer-CEO?
November 8, 2007 | Filed Under GC as CEO Springboard, In the News
Much was made of the rise of lawyers as CEOs when Pfizer and Home Depot joined Citigroup (and others) in naming former GCs as CEO.
Now the other shoe drops; when you’ve arrived your departure clock starts ticking.
Last Sunday Citigroup CEO Charles Prince resigned. Large financial services companies do nothing small. When they make money, they make it by the truckload. And when they lose it, stand back, call the Fed, and get ready for numbers starting with a “B.”
What caught my eye, however, was Mr. Prince’s memo to staff (as reprinted by the New York Times). Particularly this paragraph:
I am responsible for the conduct of our businesses. It is my judgment that the size of these charges makes stepping down the only honorable course for me to take as Chief Executive Officer. This is what I advised the Board.
It is rare for a CEO, particularly one who is stepping down, to (a) state the obvious, (b) take responsibility, and (c) do so in three short sentences.
Must be that legal writing training.
Here’s hoping that other GCs have the opportunity to be CEO. The marketers, financial types and engineers have been running up losses for years.
What Makes an Ethical Executive?
October 16, 2007 | Filed Under Compliance, In the News
A trip to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia last week found me offline and unplugged for a period of time. Reading material was scarce, but I was able to secure a daily copy of USA Today by befriending the helpful staffer at the lodge front desk.
One article in McPaper caught my eye: a report about the background of former Enron “executive” Lynn Brewer. Ms. Brewer wrote a book, “Confessions of an Enron Executive: A Whistleblower’s Story,” which launched a career as a business speaker and advisor.
But according to the newspaper, Ms. Brewer’s executive status may not be as it seems; quoting two of her former supervisors, Mary Solmonson and David Gossett:
But her boss, Solmonson, says Brewer had no control over budget or salaries and that she herself, as a senior director, would not be considered an executive. Further, Brewer’s work had nothing to do with management. “What my group did was very much a clerical function,” says Solmonson, “an important clerical function, but it was clerical.”
Gossett, Brewer’s boss during her last months at the company, scoffs at the notion that she was an executive. He was a director at Enron, he says, and that didn’t qualify him as an executive. “There was no way she was an executive, not even with a little ‘e,’ ” he adds. “If she was an executive, she was in charge of nothing.”
The article also describes the circumstances of Ms. Brewer’s departure and weighs her claims of whistleblower status.
Senior corporate executives serious about compliance learn that people sometimes hear what you say, but they really watch what you do. They also learn that leadership is called for when dealing with two key management issues: responsibility and credit.
Responsibility is something you take.
Credit is something you give.
From GC to AG to PC
August 27, 2007 | Filed Under In the News
This morning’s news of the expected resignation of Alberto Gonzales takes him in a few years from President Bush’s general counsel, to attorney general, to private citizen.
Much of the focus on Mr. Gonzales has been over the handling (or mis-handling) of the removal of eight US attorneys. Or over a burgeoning domestic surveillance program when he was White House Counsel.
But I think it goes deeper.
One thing that makes a good general counsel is an ability to balance loyalty with independence. Other C-level executives can do this, but none of them comes at it from the same ethical and professional standpoint.
There is no doubt that Mr. Gonzales owed most of his political good fortune to Mr. Bush. While that doesn’t mean he couldn’t give the President his best impartial advice, one has to search hard to find supporting evidence. Or perhaps Mr. Gonzales has no recollection of it.
Contrast this with the performance in 2004 of then acting AG James Comey, who had to support the Constitution when John Ashcroft was sedated in the hospital and endure pressure from Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Mr. Gonzales (plus who knows who else) to expand domestic surveillance.
Imagine what that was like and consider what you would be thinking the next time you started your car.
Mr. Comey went from AG to GC with Lockheed Martin.
And the next AG put forth by President Bush will hopefully have a record of integrity. If not, confirmation could drag past November 2008.
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