Who needs prime-time TV dramas! If you watched 60 Minutes last night, you got to see a real life drama that is as exciting as any TV show.

The steamy story is non other than HP and the behavior of board members Perkins and Keyworth, the two guys behind the press "leaks" we have heard about and behind the removal of Carly Fiorina and Patricia Dunn.

So much for the HP way. Taken together, these stories show nothing but big company politics at its finest, most immature and personal levels. Which is to say the story is both unbelievable and totally convincing in the way personal dramas of the rich and famous often are.

I have no doubts that Dunn was told to do the investigation or that Perkins turned on her when she did the job well and wouldnt "play ball" and forget her principles. This is a classic political disconnect. Perkins clearly thought that he made Dunn's career and she owed him loyalty; Dunn clearly felt she earned her job and that her career was based on doing the right thing. Two people doing what they felt was right, headed headlong for a political crash.

Be sure to watch the 60 Minutes pieces on Dunn and Fiorina as well as reading this very long WSJ article from the next day. The article goes into more details but it lacks the personal believability of the interviews. If you have ever been through one of these experiences, the interviews will bring it all back for you :)

Overall the message is that no matter what level of a company you are at, shit rolls down hill. If you stand on process and principle you are likely to get a public execution from those with the personal motivation and the power to do so. Such is politics.

Behind H-P Chairman's Fall, Clash With a Powerful Director

The Cautious Patricia Dunn
And Flashy Tom Perkins
Were a Combustible Pair
Overcoming a 'Respect Gap'

By GEORGE ANDERS and ALAN MURRAY

October 9, 2006

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Within weeks after her unexpected ascension to the chairmanship of Hewlett-Packard Co. last year, Patricia Dunn found herself in open warfare with another director: wealthy venture capitalist Tom Perkins.

They argued over how the board should be run. He has called her a "stickler for process and procedure." She says he was a "controller." For new board members, he pushed for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with ties to his venture firm. She rejected his suggestions in favor of big-company leaders from other industries.

They even bickered over Mr. Perkins's steamy novel, "Sex and the Single Zillionaire," which he wrote with the encouragement of his ex-wife Danielle Steel. The 74-year-old Mr. Perkins says he jokingly called for all H-P employees to buy the book. Ms. Dunn, 53, says she didn't hear anything playful in his tone and vetoed that plan. When Ms. Dunn told Mr. Perkins at a party that the book "isn't my thing," he angrily accused her of embarrassing him in public.

At heated moments, two witnesses say, Mr. Perkins would declare in front of board members: "We need a new chairman." Ms. Dunn says at other times he would poke her in the clavicle and say: "I made you chairman." Mr. Perkins's actions were, in the words of another director, former Medtronic Inc. executive Robert Ryan, "chairman abuse."