That the HP sting operation included the current CEO comes as no surprise to me. Higher-ups within corporations become paranoid about the outside world.
Former Intel CEO Andrew Grove titled his book, "Only the paranoid survive." That's true when it comes to competition -- you gotta be paranoid about the marketplace, even when no one is out to get you.
But paranoia can turn into a true psychosis about the competition. We sometimes call it "drinking the cool-aid." Everyone is out to get us. Since the survival of our corporation is the greatest good, the means justify the end. The end is eliminating the threat to our corporation's survival. The means is any way, fair or foul.
Ethicists call this "ethical egoism": the morality of an action is determined by the greatest good to myself (or corporation, in this case). In HP's case, upper management saw skirting laws as no hindrance to their actions. And their in-house ethicist could only close his eyes to what was happening.
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