

Carly Fiorina destroyed the 'HP Way' - guelo
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/27/EDFT1G2A5C.DTL

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gamble
Even when she was CEO, it was widely believed within HP that Fiorina was only
there to fluff up her Republican credentials in preparation for a run at
higher office. The HP/Compaq merger was at least in part motivated by her
desire to be the author of a flashy, attention-grabbing merger that would
vault her into the public eye.

Apparently, though, epic failure in business doesn't disqualify you from
running as the candidate of managerial competence in the modern Republican
party. Fiorina destroyed an icon of the American tech industry, and for what?
_Nothing_

~~~
hugh3
Y'see, this is why I don't like these sorts of discussions. Suppose Fiorina
were a Democrat instead of a Republican. Would you be writing the same thing
(s/Republican/Democrat/), or would you be defending her?

Maybe you _would_ be writing exactly the same thing. Maybe you're a paragon of
political detachment. But in the fraught political climate of the day, I the
reader am left to suspect that most people's opinions on the matter are
severely coloured by whether they personally wish to see a Republican replace
a Democrat in next week's California Senate election.

This is why I don't think this article is conducive to good discussion and
have flagged it.

~~~
gamble
Sorry, but I disliked Fiorina _way_ before it was cool.

I would dislike her regardless of party, for the way she destroyed HP culture
and turned my friends at Compaq into bitter, insecure husks of human beings.
(Those that haven't been fired by now, anyways) The fact that she's actually
running for office on that record is just the icing on the cake.

~~~
metageek
The arsenic on the cake.

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bfung
HP wasn't the first. In the 90s, there was Lucent Technologies, aka Bell Labs
(Unix, C, C++, vi, plan9...): <http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/carly-fiorina/>

[http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/publications/finnov-discussion-
pape...](http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/publications/finnov-discussion-papers/the-
rise-and-demise-of-lucent-technologies)

(disclosure: my parents worked there at the time and brought home the internal
news every night)

~~~
tlb
Worth reading, thanks. But it faults her for Lucent's strategy of pushing new
products into the market by financing small companies to buy and operate them.
Not only was it approved by the market, it was a sound strategy.

Lucent was continually developing new networking equipment with a particular
service model in mind, but AT&T was sluggish in deploying them. So they found
ambitious small companies and hooked them up with equipment on time payment
plans. Generally they ran the service better than the telcos would have, and
it created lots of great companies.

~~~
bfung
The 2nd link provide does a "by the numbers reported" reports. It's like high
schoolers in chemistry class trying to get an A on lab work; who hasn't fudged
the numbers before?

The Fortune article digs a bit deeper: PathNet was such service provider
caught in the easy money in the internet bubble era. "...PathNet, with barely
100 employees and all of $1.6 million in annual revenue..." "...The smaller
company had barely $100 million in equity (and that's based on generous
accounting assumptions) on top of which it had already balanced $350 million
in junk bonds paying 12.25% interest. Adding $440 million in loans from
Lucent..."

So, give equipment and money to a company, knowing they would need to one day
repay 220 times their revenue (if they could), and recording that as a "sale"
... that does not appear to be sound strategy for sustaining one's own
company. It's like banks, giving out loans to people to buy houses they might
not be able to afford...

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justinchen
When I joined HP in 2001 out of college, the first thing my boss had me do was
read the book "The HP Way." It was by Dave Packard and outlined their history
and philosophy for doing business. My boss was an HP lifer and loved the HP
culture and made all his direct reports read the book. Sadly, reading the book
just made me realize what a different company I had joined since Carly's
changes were soon felt through the organization. Even more so when HP merged
with Compaq and instilled their Texan-style top-down management approach and
booted out the more distributed and democratic approaches towards innovation
and decision making. I finally left in 2006 when the Compaq IT management
started forcing all IT employees to move to Houston or Palo Alto (I had just
moved to Chicago).

------
_delirium
The depths of dislike for Fiorina in the tech industry are somewhat
impressive. A former-HP friend who strongly leans Republican lamented that the
Republicans managed to find almost the only possible person who he _wouldn't_
vote for over Barbara Boxer (who he strongly dislikes... but not as much as he
dislikes Fiorina).

------
strlen
I still won't forgive her for killing DEC/Compaq Alpha, one of the most
beautiful CPU architectures.

~~~
asmithmd1
I don't like her because she split off HP's test equipment division into
Agilent. I think The HP Way left the building when this division was no longer
the heart of the company.

It would be like Disney spinning off the animated movie business to focus on
running TV stations or GM spinning off the car business to focus on financing.
It might make sense on a spreadsheet but it has to hurt morale of all
employees who give more than the minimum because they are proud to be
associated with an iconic company

~~~
tlb
The HP way is very much alive at Agilent. It's the right way to build test
equipment and their stuff remains the gold standard. But it turned out that
building ink jet printers was a low-margin business so that part of the
company had to become a less luxurious place to work.

------
oiuhjygtfghjnmk
She destroyed the "HP way...which put a premium on integrity, respect for
employees and a focus on how the company's work would benefit the broader
community.

Difficult to see how you could do the same in Washington

~~~
Tangurena
She was the one who started the policy of bugging employees and board members
to find leaks. I'm sure the WireTapHawks would love to have her in DC.

------
mpk
Wasn't Carly Fiorina the one who destroyed HP's R&D division and consequently
relegated a large chunk of the HP product line (HPUX, systems and storage) to
obsolescence in the space of a few years?

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jackfoxy
Didn't the HP board destroy the HP Way by placing the outsider Fiorina at the
helm?

~~~
brown9-2
I agree. You can't blame a single person for such a large strategic shift. She
is just the most visible, and the easiest to blame.

However, some number of people had to think it was a good idea to hire her,
continue to extend her contract, and reward her performance with huge
compensation.

Even a CEO has a boss.

~~~
nostrademons
The analogy here is that if she's elected and screws up the country, then it's
the voters' fault. Which is true, but is also a good reason to not put
yourself in that position as a voter.

------
gfodor
Carly Fiorina running on her record as CEO of HP is like Michael Brown running
on his record as the head of FEMA.

------
stretchwithme
Seems to me that quite a few tough choices need to be made in DC and I don't
recall Boxer making any that didn't involve wasting vast sums of money.

------
stretchwithme
and Barbara Boxer is, along with her fellow foolish democrats and republicans,
destroying the American Way. I guess they're even steven.

------
tlb
The article charges that at HP, Fiorina maximized shareholder value at the
expense of a great intellectual & humanitarian legacy. You can deplore that or
not depending on your economics. But it's not a reason to paint her as a
bumbler or willful destroyer. The market approved her strategy at Lucent and
most of her time at HP.

~~~
gamble
What? Lucent lost 90% of its value thanks to Carly's leadership, and HP's
stock lost 50%. If she was effective at anything, it was destroying
shareholder value by the billion.

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zeteo
Fiorina's (mis)adventures with HP are hardly news (she resigned in 2005). This
is a purely political article before next week's election, and it is "off-
topic: most stories about politics [...] unless they're evidence of some
interesting new phenomenon."

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johngalt
The timing of this article is interesting. Supposedly she destroyed the 'HP
Way' years ago. Makes me wonder why it was brought up now... Almost as if
there was some important date approaching...

~~~
brown9-2
The intention is clearly stated in the first and second sentences of the
article. It's not as if the author's are trying to hide their purpose.

~~~
krakensden
Look at the username, this person is trolling.

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purpledove
I can't take this seriously - blaming an individual, especially a CEO, for
destroying a corporate culture is ridiculous. I know essentially nothing about
the history of HP, but what I do know is that the board bears ultimate
responsibility for big decisions, for example a massive layoff.

There is also the distinct possibility that the 'HP Way' was sacrificed to
save the company. Again, I know nothing of the history, but putting out a hit
piece like this right before the election is just crude.

~~~
mikeryan
I have to disagree, I would think that the CEO would be the single most
important individual in defining, creating and driving a corporate culture.

~~~
gamble
I agree, but in the case of HP I would add that the board has been entirely
capable of disgracing itself independently of Fiorina. Fiorina, Hurd, and
Apotheker didn't manifest out of thin air, after all.

