[ti:The Rise and Fall of Mark Hurd as H-P Chief] [ar:Steve Ember] [al:Economics Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:02.97]Economics Report. [00:04.77]Mark Hurd got credit [00:07.14]for building Hewlett-Packard [00:08.88]into the world's largest [00:10.62]technology company. [00:12.80]H-P is the top seller [00:15.29]of personal computers and printers. [00:18.46]It had sales last year of [00:21.69]almost one hundred [00:23.06]fifteen billion dollars. [00:24.87]Mr. Hurd became chief [00:27.60]executive officer five years ago [00:30.09]after H-P ousted Carly Fiorina. [00:34.07]Later he also became chairman. [00:37.18]Under his leadership H-P stock [00:40.91]doubled in price. [00:43.28]So the news out of Palo Alto, [00:45.52]California, last Friday came [00:48.01]to many as a shock. [00:49.94]Mark Hurd was out. [00:51.99]Investigators said he had falsified [00:55.41]expense records to hide spending [00:58.46]on a woman who worked with H-P. [01:01.19]Reports said the amount was [01:03.87]about twenty thousand dollars. [01:05.86]Mr. Hurd is married. [01:08.47]He earned twenty-four [01:10.46]million dollars last year. [01:12.33]In June the former [01:15.07]marketing contractor, Jodie Fisher, [01:17.86]accused Mr. Hurd of sexual harassment. [01:21.10]Through her lawyer, she said she was [01:24.21]"surprised and saddened" [01:26.95]that he lost his job. [01:28.75]She said they had settled [01:31.43]her claim privately. [01:32.73]The sometime actress also said [01:36.17]they never had an [01:37.72]"intimate sexual relationship." [01:40.27]H-P and private investigators [01:44.26]found no violation of the sexual [01:47.30]harassment policy at the company. [01:49.79]But they did find that Mr. Hurd [01:52.90]violated H-P's Standards [01:55.58]of Business Conduct. [01:57.51]These suggest that before [01:59.81]employees make a decision, [02:02.11]they should "consider how it [02:04.04]would look in a news story." [02:06.15]Sexual harassment is [02:08.76]one of the areas of job [02:10.57]discrimination investigated [02:12.62]by the Equal Employment [02:14.42]Opportunity Commission. [02:16.48]The federal agency received [02:19.03]almost thirteen thousand [02:21.28]harassment claims last year. [02:24.10]That was down from over [02:26.27]fifteen thousand ten years ago. [02:29.39]Men now make close to [02:32.00]one-fifth of the complaints. [02:34.30]The agency finds reasonable cause [02:37.72]in about half of all [02:39.96]sexual harassment claims. [02:41.89]H-P is paying Mark Hurd [02:45.68]twelve million dollars plus millions [02:48.79]more in stock options to leave. [02:51.78]But his resignation was not [02:54.76]the only exit from a job that [02:57.38]was in the news this week. [02:59.12]A flight attendant became [03:01.92]an overnight folk hero [03:03.85]on the Internet. [03:05.77]Steven Slater apparently argued [03:09.07]with a passenger over baggage [03:11.62]in the overhead bin [03:13.67]and got hit on the head. [03:15.85]Once the flight landed [03:18.34]in New York he deployed [03:20.33]the emergency slide [03:21.70]and left the plane. [03:23.57]Soon there was a new expression: [03:26.74]to "hit the slide," [03:28.73]to leave a job in a memorable way. [03:32.09]But Steven Slater is [03:34.70]in a lot of legal trouble [03:36.38]and details of exactly [03:38.74]what happened on that [03:40.61]JetBlue flight and how he [03:43.10]acted are still up in the air. [03:47.33]And that's the VOA Special English [03:50.44]Economics Report, [03:52.30]written by Mario Ritter. [03:53.92]I'm Steve Ember.