Keith Block left Salesforce and Options Market is HEAVY today on the rumor that Block is heading to Oracle.
Jim Cramer on CNBC today was drooling about this guy as a "winner".
Block might be good but he was riding the coattails of Benioff and his amazing company.
That does NOT mean Block can do the SAME thing at toxic Oracle if he joined. He would have to terraform the place which would mean MASSIVE layoffs to "reset".
If this were true, thoughts on Block?...
WHY would KB go back to the company got axed from? He's not looking backwards. He is set for the rest of his life.
If I was KB i’d start to enjoy my BIG stash. Is MH found out life is too damn fast and short.
"Oracle has no future. I don't think they can attract a big name CEO..."
Probably because all of LE's contemporaries have now retired or died off, no one left that he trusts to run the big O
KB was caught in an IM exchange (during the HP Itanium lawsuit) with an Oracle HR VP with headline making comments on Sun hardware: "We bought a dog. MH wants us to sell the dog. ... Nobody wants to sell Sun. ... It baaaallllloooooooows." It was the reason that Oracle Legal was absolutely opposed to people retaining IM logs.
He joined as college recruit to Oracle consulting and was a long time sales guy at Oracle. He knows how oracle sales work and unfortunately was forced out due to the leaked exchange about his take on Oracle investing heavily in Sparc and Sun hardware. He will be a great guy to lead Sales org again.
Oracle has no future. I don't think they can attract a big name CEO, stock will be going down soon, no money to keep propping it up.
KB would be great and is someone rank and file would be proud to follow and work for vs. the egotistical MH who though he was way smarter than he was and who both employees and customers loathed.
For any executive to come to Oracle, they have to believe the stock will go up enough to make their stock-based comp pay off. With the market looking toppy, and Oracle already having blown through its cash for stock buybacks, who would bet their career on O's stock's future?
Oracle needs more than Keith Block.
The biggest challenge is at both product and senior management level, there is too much overlap and duplication and no impetus to thin everything back.
It’s easier to run a series of personal fiefdoms and sacrifice serf class employees than admit the company is a bloated mess of big ego with no coherent growth strategy.
The new marketing dude from AWS is the only one speaking truth at the moment. I give him until Q1FY21.
Yeah that's just what O needs another sales guy like MH to lead. Doomed to fail. Hope it is not so.
Would be dumb of KB to try save O, as it would certainly fail
This is a rumor. KB is going somewhere, but that place is not Oracle.
When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
Warren Buffett
KB is no Satya Nadella. Not going to fix Oracle.
DOA... just like cloud renewals
If KB were to come on I bet it would be as SOLE CEO. What happens to SC? Would LE leave so she would and then come back? Or is he looking to escape?
I put the odds of Oracle (and LE) making an intelligent CEO hire with major SaaS/Cloud experience at about 1.7% chance of happening.
Block would need the same blank check power that Steve Jobs had when he returned to Apple. And even then, he ain't Steve Jobs and Oracle ain't Apple.
Cancer/rot at Oracle is too far in for any major positive change.
KB did a great job running the NA sales org and was lived by the sales reps, but back then oracle still had a decent product offering; not anymore.
That said he always wanted to be CEO so maybe LE managed to lure him back. Doubt he wants to be co-CEO with S.C though