Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Barry / Presidential Politics A Cool (Springs) Reception
Posted by Bruce Barry on Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:50 AM
“One is hard-pressed to think of anything [Fiorina] did during her time at either Lucent or HP that wasn't designed to burnish her own image--at the sacrifice of anyone who got in her way....Her employees, her shareholders, industry analysts and her own board of directors repudiated Carly Fiorina's leadership of Hewlett-Packard....The truth is that, for all of her post facto justifications, Carly Fiorina was a failure at Hewlett-Packard.” (Michael Malone, author of Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company). “She had made an all-in bet on a 2002 merger with Compaq Computer, but the promised ‘synergies’ never materialized, earnings growth lagged, and H-P's stock price trailed those of its competitors." (Wall Street Journal editorial, 2/11/05). “Carly allowed HP to drift onto the wrong side of the defining divide in the global economy....Aside from chasing away shareholder capital, she chased away talent....Carly, globe-hopping in her Gulfstream, worked 100-hour weeks. But she was focused on too many tasks. Which is no focus at all." (Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes, 2/11/05). “The [HP] board...let Fiorina make radical changes in the company with little benefit to the bottom line for years, and then capitulated in her egotistical, ill-fated campaign to purchase fading personal computer giant Compaq.” (Jon D. Markman, TheStreet.com )Fiorina, a poster child for the fundamental corruption of executive pay, walked away from this sparkling performance with a $21 million severance package after the HP board summarily fired her. One can only hope that McCain taps her for VP and has to spend the next three months defending her tarnished leadership brand.
Comments (12)
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Reaadars should note that the criticisms ytou linked to or quote regarding Fiorina's leadership of HP all date from 2005.
Much more recently, the business press is coming around to the view that her leadership and the decisions she made at HP are what positioned the company for its recent resurgence to become the leading global computer manufacter/seller.
Fiorina joined HP in 1999, AFTER its profits has slumped amid the biggest technology boom in Silicon Valley history. Frankly, HP was a company circling the drain when she became CEO. Today, it is the leader globally in PC sales.
As for your crack about her riding around in her Gulfstream, pretty much every major computer and software company in Silicon Valley has a jet for tis CEO to travel around in. You don't think Michael Dell, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates flew commercial, do you?
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All of the critics you quote or link to are things written in 2005. More recently the business press has come around to crediting Fiorina's leadership and decisions at HP with rescuing the company, which was circling the drain - amid the biggest tech boom in history - in 1999 when she became CEO.
The merger with Compaq helped HP become the number one seller of computers on earth.
As for the Gulfstream, pretty much every major Silicon Valley company has a corporate jet for their CEO to use. Tech is a global business - certainly you don't think Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Scott McNealy, Bill Gates and the rest are flying commercial, do you?
Hobbs cheerfully swallows whole Fiorina's self-serving autospin and reinvention, something to which the McCain campaign has bought into as well. But there are many who interpret HP's improved recent financial performance in light of major restructuring and strategic rethinking under Fiorina's successor Mark Hurd. As Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale's School of Management, one of the country's top observers of CEO leadership, says of Fiorina, "What a blind spot this is in the McCain campaign to have elevated her stature and centrality in this way. You couldn’t pick a worse, non-imprisoned C.E.O. to be your standard-bearer."
Hobbs- Thanks for posting your first and second drafts, definitely a big improvement on the second one. They're both b.s., of course, but the second draft does read a bit better.
She had been riding that mower for years, from what I've been told. She would mix a cocktail for Larry, cook dinner, eat with Larry and their two kids, then off she'd go. Neighbors say they never saw nothing like it.
Notice how TNGOP's mouthpiece is motionless on the subject of the golden parachute? Pulling that rip cord is more symbolic of the GOP than elephants are. An obscene waste of money for mediocrity at the expense of defenseless consumers.
I covered high tech business for many years, H-P included, and I am really dubious about the alleged recent "business press" lauding of Fiorina's "leadership" given the further decline of a once-great firm during her stand--and the utter miscall in acquiring Compaq. I'd love to see some examples of this, done simply as business analysis--and not as a defense of her record for reasons that are blatantly political.
Didn't she also spy on her own board of directors?
Regardless, Fiorina seems woefully unaware of her chosen candidates' positions on a host of issues. She didn't seem to know that McCain voted no on a bill that would require insurance companies to cover birth control. She says we have to fully fun No Child Left Behind while McCain voted AGAINST that. And she seemed completely unaware that McCain has supported Bush on the Iraq War.
Seems like Carly Fiorina might want to look at another candidate for president, she doesn't seem to agree with John McCain on some big issues.
bb, your entire response to Hobbs was strong, but I was tempted to put a period after the first three words leave it at that.
Sorry for the double post. The first time I posted it appeared to just disappear.
As for Fiorina's exit pay, I have no problem with a corporation paying its employees as its owners and board of directors choose to do. This is a free country, or at least it is supposed to be. (Joy Ford may disagree that it is still free).
I don't know the details of Fiorina's exit pay, but in many cases those eye-popping dollar figures are stock rather than dollars.
On Fiorina's severance package, she vetoed the board's original offering which didn't include approval by shareholders for one that did. And it really was around 14 Million. Still very large, but in hiensight, it's difficult to come up with a more visionary CEO who more effectively transformed a company as large as HP better than Carly Fiorina. I voted yes on the Compaq merger and her pay and I have zero regrets.
On Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. Sonnenfield's credibility is hurt since his opinion of Fiorina is virtually unchanged from the day she was brought in as CEO of HP til today. Look at his full opinions of what HP should have done back when Fiorina was brought in and compare it with what Fiorina was able to do and the record speaks for itself: Fiorina 1, Sonnenberg 0.
In regards to Southern Beales remarks, Fiorina had nothing to do with the HP spygate controversy. That was entirely the work of Fiorina's successor, Patricia Dunn. However, its important to note that Fiorina had to deal with an even more corrupt board than Dunn, yet she managed under legal means, unlike Dunn, who cracked and approved the identity theft and spying of her own board members to identify leakers. (Dunn was convicted, however, the leak was identified and was forced to resign)
Also, on birth control, Fiorina clearly voiced an opinion of many women that birth control should be covered by health insurance, not neccessarily stating that John McCain supported this position. Both McCain and Fiorina have been able to clarify this point.
On funding "No Child Left Behind," we all know that the debate is really what the word "fully" means. Since it actually could mean anything, it can only be a matter of opinion. Both times McCain voted against bills that would increase funding were failed and since NCLB is a bill written by Republican leadership, it would make sense that they should have more credibility on what "fully funded" means in regard to their own bill.
Lastly, McCain was a loud critic of Donald Rumsfeld's policy in Iraq since 2003. Check any conservative blog; he was a thorn in their side at any given sunday morning when McCain would advocate for a troop surge. Before President Bush eventually enacted McCain's policy, which at the time was being derided as the "McCain Doctrine" because at the time it was very unpopular and liberals thought they could stain the likely 08' candidate with the policy, McCain and President Bush only agreed on the decision to invade Iraq.
