David Duffield gave up the chief executive's job at corporate software maker PeopleSoft in 1999 when the company was mired in a sales slump, handing the corner office over to Craig Conway. The company enjoyed a remarkable turnaround, but a hostile takeover bid by rival Oracle eventually led to Conway's ouster. Duffield lost the battle with Oracle, and the database maker acquired PeopleSoft in 2005.
Talkback
