Comment by neilv

In a company like HP at that moment...

* Might the same decisions have been made, even if the CTO were there?

* Would the CTO have one or more (SVP? VP?) people ramped up on the technical/product, and able to take a temporary acting-CTO role on that?

* Would there have been any sharp-elbow environment reason not to elevate subordinates temporarily into one's role and access? (For example, because you might return to find it's permanent.)

* What was the influence and involvement of the other execs? Surely it wasn't just CTO saying "buy this", CEO saying "OK", and then a product and marketing apparatus executing indifferently?