Scandal isn't particularly costly in Silicon Valley. Just ask Mark Hurd, who was pushed out as Hewlett Packard CEO for falsifying expense reports, amid sexual harassment charges, and now has a posh new job and a platinum parachute.

Disgrace has done well by Hurd, judging from a story set for tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, which puts the former CEO's severance at "a potential $35 million" and his new salary as co-president of Oracle at $950,000 per year. Oracle is also giving him a $10 million potential bonus this fiscal year, options on 10 million shares this year and 5 million shares each year thereafter. He'll be serving alongside Chuck Phillips, the co-president whose longtime secret affair seems to have been shrugged off by the Valley elite. It would seem that, at Oracle, lying about the little things just proves you're ready to graduate to the larger, more profitable deceptions.

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