

Whitman's political obsessions spell disaster for HP - junioreven
http://www.itworld.com/hardware/209825/whitmans-political-obsessions-spell-disaster-hp

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zeteo
The mistake that this article makes is assuming that purely business decisions
are what make or break large corporations these days. When it is, in fact,
quite clear under the current system that politics can greatly determine such
a corporation's success. Companies that play the game well, like GM, can get
away with a shoddy performance on the business side of things; and companies
that try to stay out, like Microsoft in its earlier years, simply cannot.

In the case at hand, Whitman is apparently going all in for a Romney win in
2012. If it doesn't happen, she'll probably go the way of Hurd and Apotheker.
But if her bets do pay off, HP can expect to be showered with enough
governmental benefits to more than cover up any deficiencies on the business
side.

Bad business decisions, political obsessions, corrupt system? Maybe so.
Disaster for HP? Not necessarily.

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pflats
Whitman was tapped on September 22nd. As best I can tell, this dinner was
"last Wednesay", September 26th. Did she plan a $7,500/plate dinner in 4 days?
Would Nerny rather she have cancelled it?

Is this really enough reason to pillory a former politician over? I mean, up
until mid-September, that was her main job. What do you do when you're a
defeated politician with rich friends? Raise money.

It seems a little ridiculous to jump from this fundraiser to the idea that
"Whitman's political activities will accelerate along with presidential
campaign. That's obvious."

edit: I don't disagree that she'll still care deeply about politics, but
saying they'll be priority one based on one dinner is an extrapolation of the
worst kind.

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davidu
Whitman's political ambitions died in the Governors race she lost in
California. She spent over $100mm of her own money and couldn't get more than
41.7% of the vote. It wasn't even close and she out-spent Jerry Brown by more
than 5:1.

She may be distracted by her desire to be a political insider, but she can't
be so delusional to believe she would be a VP candidate or even a presidential
hopeful, now or in 2016. She's far too polarizing of a figure. To put it
another way, if Hillary, who was already a multi-tenured Senator couldn't get
the democratic nomination then there is no way a non-politico from California
would ever get a piece of the GOP pie. That was cemented after her loss in the
Governor's race.

I think she's fine for HP, though I wasn't unhappy with Léo Apotheker. Then
again, I wasn't an HP shareholder either. :-)

~~~
hinathan
I can't think of anything more toxic to an already struggling company than for
the leadership to not be fully engaged. HP needs full-time adult supervision,
and whether or not she's got dreams of getting elected again Whitman will
continue to try to be a rainmaker at least for the California GOP. Not going
to end well.

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ScottBurson
Meg told us specifically (yes, "us" -- I am an HP employee) that she would
drop her political activities while CEO. But as others have pointed out, this
fundraiser was surely already scheduled.

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mikeryan
I'm not a fan of Whitman in charge of HP but this article is a joke. She
hosted a dinner? Whoop, a lot of very successful CEO's host political dinners.
You know who else is extremely involved in politics? The Koch brothers and
their companies seem to be doing just fine. *

* I'm not making any judgement on the Koch brothers here, I'll leave that for other outlets on teh interwebs.

~~~
sc68cal
>You know who else is extremely involved in politics? The Koch brothers and
their companies seem to be doing just fine.

Indeed, they've carved out a very large market for their enterprises, which
has freed up time for them to dabble in politics as well. HP is not in such a
comfortable position, they have serious challenges in a fast paced market.

In addition, Koch industries is a family business. There's a big difference
between hired help (Whitman) and having real skin in the game. I'm sure if a
competitor came along and started eating their lunch, the Koch brothers would
scale back their political work.

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j_col
I've always felt that corporate managers beyond a certain grade were career
politicians anyway, so what's the difference?

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spinchange
It's fair to question a new CEO and have concerns about performance or if
they're the right person, etc.

I think it's very unfair to suggest all the things this post does based on the
fact that a new CEO is and/or has been politically active on their own time,
in their own home, with their own money.

