An Engineer's View of Carly Fiorina's Leadership

prostoalex writes "There is a pretty damning look at Carly Fiorina's leadership while at HP on TechnologyReview.com. The author was working for HP Labs, the center of invention and innovation for the company, only to be told that nothing exciting will happen in the tech market since it's a mature industry. He left the company in 2003. "The lab was never packed with genius marketers. Carly told us we had no business sense, and that every project needed to make a profit within three years or less. She usually said that right before the research budget got slashed again and more lab employees were laid off."" Update: 03/19 03:13 GMT by Z : As detailed on the TechnologyReview page, they have retracted the story on the grounds that they can no longer vouch for it.

Kill Innovation

[SpaceLifeForm]

Now, what Forces Of Evil (FOE) would want to do that?

And she want's to run the World Bank!?

[Anonymous Coward]

"nothing exciting will happen in the tech market since it's a mature industry"

So is that it with the planet then? "I'm sorry, the planet is mature, nothing more will happen, history has ended. Please make your way in an orderly fashion to the exits..."

What a boring woman!

Re:Kill Innovation

[Xshare]

Forces of Evil? The ska band?

Dominatrix

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to have Carly as my personal dominatrix, though.

Crack that whip on my pale white ass, make me lick your boots and worship your holiest of holys. Let me be your sex slave!

Anyone else find it funny...

[The Hobo]

That at the top of the page, an ad for HP shows up?

Front line troops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, how many of the "frontline troops" could tell you

Frontline troops, also known as pawns.

They don't matter, they're expendable, they're waste of skin but unfortunately necessary -- at least for the time being. That's what I learned when I got my MBA.

Re:Why supprised

[Sponge Bath]

Managment are in there nature dumb.

...and others are even dumberer.

HP on the 'Bacon Sandwich'

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not too impressed with the way that the food division [hpfoods.com] is heading either.

Dammit, what about open sauce?

Re:Being a slashdotter...

[double-oh three]

You mean Farker.

Slashdot is powerful!

[Futurepower(R)]

Slashdot is powerful! On Tuesday I complained about Carly Fiorina in a Slashdot comment [slashdot.org], and on Wednesday she was fired [google.com]. (See the 6th paragraph of the comment, and the subsequent comment.)

Re:Remember Palmer?

[Anonymous Coward]

The rot started long before Carly with Robert Palmer's "leadership" of Digital.

It was all downhill after "Addicted to Love".

Re:He's just an angry, old, white man

[psykocrime]

The Patriarchy will do whatever it can to keep down a smart, sophisticated woman.

Maybe, but what does that have to do with Carly Fiorina?

Re:Fiorina's comeback: World Bank?

[cmowire]

I bet that'll make the anti-globilization folks happy. They've been wanting something to happen to the world bank. :)

Re:more D than R

[Psychopundit]

I fail to see how Hello Kitty is relevant to this world. In fact, the prospect of it ever becoming so is truly frightening.

Carly's Looks?

[yukio]

I swear that she and Celine Dion are really one and the same person.

With about the same abilities in their respective fields.

Carly Fiorina to head the World Bank?

[kaalamaadan]

Carly Fiorina is the potential chief of the World Bank [hindustantimes.com]. So while engineers breathe a sigh of relief, the world at large cowers in fear at the next turn?

Re:No one cares...

[virtual_mps]

Bulls**t. When she was hired at HP she had seemingly done a good job at Lucent and clearly deserved a shot at the position.

Yeah, she did great things for lucent. They might even recover someday.

Re:I had no idea she was that disliked

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? Whenever she made plant trips, she had to come in a back door, had all the chairs in the presentation rooms secured to the floor, and free of small solid objects. Hard core HP'ers LOATHED Carly. I'm surprised that one of them didn't try to put a bullet in her head before she left.

New slogan

[bsandersen]

After seeing the iPod in an HP box I realized their new slogan was:

HP: relabel

But Carly made money for stockholders!

[MillionthMonkey]

Carly made lots of money for stockholders. I can personally attest to this.

I bought 26 shares of HP stock on February 1 at 19.75. Carly leaves, and I dump my stock on the 9th at 21.50!!! [yahoo.com] Woo hoo! I made $45 in just 8 days (minus commission). Just look at that selloff spike. Some of that was me!

Anyone who knew anything about HP was partying that day. Even at Agilent everyone was giddy. If I had known Carly was about to get dumped I would have hurled my life savings into HPQ.

I understand she has a bright future ahead of her in the Republican Party. If the Republicans are smart they'll wait until right before an election to kick her out of the party.

Re:I had no idea she was that disliked

[SunFan]

I bet IBM, Sun, and Dell all celebrated, too, seeing HP go down the tubes. What are HP going to do, now? Somehow hire back all the people who knew everything?

I think HP should buy Infinium Labs and go into the game console business. Put an Itanium in them and sell them also as bathroom space heater entertainment center combo units. Bonus points if they put a toilet paper roll holder on top and put an Elmo spin brush in the box.

Re:Fiorina's comeback: World Bank?

[multiplexo]

I bet that'll make the anti-globilization folks happy. They've been wanting something to happen to the world bank. :)

I wonder if we could get Carly to take over Al Qaeda, in three years goodbye threat of terrorism, and I'd imagine that when you leave Al Qaeda you don't get a 20 million dollar severance package, probably just a bullet in the head and a shallow grave somewhere in the Afghanistan plains.

I think...

[Quiet_Desperation]

...she looks like Edie Falco from some angles.

That's all I have to say about her that's civil.

Carly: http://www.paumanokgroup.com/slides/4.jpg [paumanokgroup.com]

Edie: http://www.readio.com/nywindowgallery/movies/img16 .gif [readio.com]

Re:I had no idea she was that disliked

[killjoe]

Where I work they buy the worst toilet paper in the world to save money. This stuff is like sandpaper. Mind you this is a company worth around a billion dollars.

So don't make fun of providing toilet paper, especially if it's nice and soft. Hell I'd switch companies if somebody offered me the same pay but better toilet paper.

Re:And she want's to run the World Bank!?

[dago]

... or run the US Patent & Trademark Office ?

Ref. "Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899)

Re:Remember Palmer?

[DenDave]

Yeah.. and lemme guess...



How can it be permissible
She compromise my principle, yeah yeah
That kind of management is mythical
She's anything but typical

She's a crazy bitch and smells like a horse, she's a powerful force
You're obliged to conform when there's no other course
She used to look good to me, but now I find her
Simply unemployable, Simply unemployable

Her style is so powerful, huh
It's simply unavoidable
The trend is irreversible
The woman is incorrigable

She's a natural flaw, and she leaves me in awe
She deserves the applause, I surrender because
She used to look good to me, but now I find her
Simply unemployable, Simply unemployable



adapted from simply irresistable