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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.
Honestly, does this kind of leadership at HP suprise anyone? With the constant garbage they produce and botch-up dealings they make this just explains matters. Alpha anyone?
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
To me, this rabid fixation on short-term profits is a bigger threat than outsourcing -- it is killing our ability to make astonishing things.
This has been the case with many companies since the mid 80s. Their R & D is alot more D than R. Many of the most admired technology companies of the 60s, 70s and 80s are gone because they ate their seed corn.
The rabid fixation with short term profits is a problem cut from the same cloth as outsourcing.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
...all they want is money. Look, Carly got something like a $20million package (maybe more)for getting fired. Would _you_ care if you knew that's what you would get for screwing up?
Possibly, if that mucked up your reputation. But inexplicably, IT DOESN'T. Rumors are she's on the shortlist to head the World Bank? WTF???
Nobody on the board of directors (board of fat cats more like it) really cares either. Or possibly they are impossibly dumb.
Look, how many of the "frontline troops" could tell you that the Compaq-HP merger wasn't any good and would amount to not much?
Unfortunately, it isn't just HP. It's nearly every CEO and board of directors.
Hands up those of you on Slashdot who _knew_ the AOL-Time Warner was going to be bust? Yes, those of us in the field and half a teaspoon of wit knew that didn't make sense and was doomed to disaster. Yet the supposedly "wise and experienced" board didn't see it coming?
Fact is, these stupid maneuvers are are win-win-win for the board, CEO's and the stock analysts. They don't give a damn what happens to the company.
Now Mr. Hewlett and Packard, they wouldn't pull this sort of shit because it was their own baby.
Founder of IBM had some pretty good rules too, they treated customers and employees _right_. But since he went, it's been all downhill (except for profits).
The rot started long before Carly with Robert Palmer's "leadership" of Digital. Having come from the semiconductor side of the house, it was amazing what he failed to do with Alpha.
Not to mention the unholy tieup with Microsoft - anyone else remember the corporate switch from VAXmail/All-In-One to Exchange on his watch? On the world's largest private network, I am sure that helped Microsoft up the corporate ladder...
This is a damning indictment of the entire industry. And really, if the focus is on software patents, can that be such a shock?
This is why the US software patent system must never be exported: if they want to nothing but sit on their arses and sue each other, let them. The rest of us have real work to do.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
actually, i would rather do it with a crowbar. Each to his own, I guess.
I'm as cynical as the next guy (and then some), but I think your statement lacks consideration. Management isn't dumb by nature; there are a lot of factors that go into making a dumb manager. The Peter Principle, the MBA shortcut, or "connections." Sometimes, though, management consists of brilliant people that not only offer great people and asset management skills, but everything else that goes into a really successful product, service, company, etc.
Google, Pixar, and Apple - are these companies that succeed despite dumb management?
But I like this quote:
"Bill Hewlett used to remind us that "The marketing guys said the HP-35 would be a failure because it was too small, and then we couldn't make them fast enough to meet the demand. The marketing folks don't know everything."
Because it was too small. Talk about misreading a market. Computing became ubiquitous entirely because of continuing miniaturization. Of course marketers would argue that they've now learned their lesson. They won't make that mistake again! No. They'll make some other ridiculous mistake. Not because they're stupid people, but because they don't understand current technology limitations and how trends imply change upon those limitations. Presumably, those former marketers thought "bigger meant better". Bigger cars were "better", right? They didn't see the potential utility of a pocket calculator, just as some will miss the utility of some other invention or advancement.
Marketing is fine as a tool for finding products people want. But it's useless for determining if a completely new technology might create or revolutionize a market. See the Dyson vacuum cleaner as another example of marketers misreading how new technology might completely change a mature market. Marketing works best only after the marketers understand a technology and its limitations, in coordination with traditional market analysis. Not prior. --M
It's not unlike Hollywood, where actors and actresses live in their own version of reality - pretty far removed from the daily lives most of us have.
When you earn that type of money, and spend your time around peers that do the same, how can you expect them to see these screw-ups as a "big deal", really? Like you said, it's not their own business, built from the ground up - so they're not coming into things with that background of remembering how tough it was to build it.
A lot of these big-wig corporate types pander more to such things as a peer "taking a big risk". They're going to say "Carly, that was a really bold move you made, merging with Compaq. Didn't really work out, but that's the type of thinking and attitude we like to see in a C.E.O.! I think we can find a new spot for you over here...."
In many ways, I think they approach it like gambling. Sure, the rest of us can say "I can't believe that guy just plunked down a million dollars on the roulette table and lost it all. What a moron!" But if he's got the kind of money where that isn't going to put an end to his lifestyle, and his peers are equally rich gamblers, they're just going to cheer him on. They're thinking in the back of their heads that they're "way above" all those naysayers who aren't "successful enough" to even afford to take those types of risks.
I think in a normal world. people would collaberate and fund raise to do RnD - their creations would gain them value and reputation, and that would lead to new opportunities. But we don't live in a normal world, we live in a patent world - a world where companies receive vast rewards for cutting off other companies from new tchnologies. A world where those little inventors (who patents are supposed to help) are premanately locked out.
.... (no big companies). I think if people kicked patents the hell out of they way they'd be supprised what happens. It would free up millions of inventions, to millions more inventors, and create a sunami of economic growth and technology. The fact that inventions can be coppied should be treated like a opportunity, not a threat, or even worse a theft. Patents monopolies (and I mean all of them, not just software) simply half to die and calling them
Yeah, I know the "party line" that one that says no big companies will invent without patent monopolies, but just look at how many items in the average kitchen were really invented by a big company (hint none). Look at the electricity, phone, the PC, the radio, and so on
intellectual "property" is simply fradulent.
First, where's the comparison with the experience at other R&D labs, like Microsoft's.
Plus, the guy's article runs under the assumption that the R&D Lab is holy and that any attempt to reduce, shape, or in someway modify them is evil.
This is not necessarily true. Xerox PARC gave us the mouse, the gui, and ethernet. Microsoft's R&D Lab hasn't done much noteworthy yet has a $1 billion+ budget.
Apple's innovation shouldn't necessarily even be attributed to an R&D Lab. I remember that Apple emphasizes a research-to-product-development cycle. Apples tells its developers precisely that: "these things better turn into products!"
And this makes simple business sense in some cases. Look at what good those innovations did Xerox. Apple took the GUI and mouse, Microsoft took the GUI from Apple, and 3Com took ethernet.
This article's the typical kick-her-on-the-way-out story. "Yeah, I didn't like her either! She didn't increase my budget! I don't need to argue anymore."
Philosophistry
>You know you're doing a bad job if your
>ex-employees open champagne upon hearing
>of your leaving. Wow.
I'm sure the gigantic KA-CHING! of a cash register ringing up her severance package drowned out the cork popping. The first rule of bad management: If someone in the company hates you, they're a "disgruntled employee". I'd suspect Carly dearest subscribed to that notion with a vengeance.
At the time I was an EDS employee on an HP contract; I saw similar (though more subdued) celebration when EDS's Dick Brown left, with sincere hopes that Carly would be next. As is was, the contract left before she did. No matter, I still got a good laugh out of it when she finally took the door.
Yeah, that's funny. I didn't know there were people left who don't use ad-blockers!
The difference here is that with Google, the original founders of the company are still in control and thus they have a personal stake in the company (not just financially as its still their "baby"). The other companies that have been mentioned in these discussions, the orginal founders are no longer in control (bit hard to keep control when your dead), and there have been management "drones" put in place. You know the type, completely interchangable between industries because all they care about is the pseudo-science of managment which all boils down to maximise the profits at the end of the quarter. But of course the reason that these management drones can exist is the fact that once a company lists, everything becomes about profit for the quarter. Thus if upper management is just worried about a maximum of 3 months out, all long term thinking/planning is banished as it will most likely have a negative impact on the next quarters results (resulting in a negative impact on the management drones performance -> reduced bonus for them).
It is worth pointing out that this isn't Carly's first debacle, she also drove Lucent into the ground. That's a mighty impressive record, destroying not only the company that made the transistor, but also one of the first companies to put it to good use. I think Bush sees alot of himself in Carly. Remember he had two failed business ventures, Spectrum 7 and Harken Energy. Harken bailed him out at Spectrum, and some skillful insider trading netted him a profit out of the second (it's not only good to be a King, being son of a President ain't so bad either).
The most telling paragraph of that piece from TechnologyReview.com is: "Our biggest mistake at HP Labs came from being too cautious. We passed on developing Steve Wozniak's cheap little personal computer. Woz was working in HP's lab, on calculator projects, at the time. We knew the computer idea was great, but we couldn't work out how to market it, so we passed."
The retired HP engineer undermined his point that "a marketing person should not run a tech company" by admitting that tech guys, including him, are no marketing genius either.
Tech industry is a cutthroat business, let's face it. Bashing a failed Tech CEO is a popular game these days, that is why a short article like this gets the Slashdot treatment. But, the smarter people are working on weeknights and weekends, at their basements, in their garages, to come up with the next thing, and I bet they do it quietly.
Sun and Fun
Carly wasn't the root source of problem, the boneheads that hired her and let her run the company into the toilet were and are the problem.
"a good idea comes from many ideas." It sounds like Carly Fiorina does not truly understand how research and development is funded. If an exec comes in thinking that all ideas and prototypes that come out of the lab must have an economical payout, then they will commit innovation suicide. Give a little slack and allow the engineers and researchers do what they do best -- create. If you make them worry about their job or their wallet, then that's wasted brain energy that could have been put to good use for creativity.
Some venture capitalists (which I think Carly was before joining HP) truly understand the nature of the beast, which is why we often hear about companies, crazy ideas, or projects the VCs back that should have never had funding in the first place. Fund lots of ideas, one of them will be a great one.
Linux at home
Sorry, you're wrong. Companies need leaders with a clue. That's it.
I work for IBM. Lou Gerstner, a hick from some tobacco/foods conglomerate came in and saved our bacon. A lot of the old timers curse his name, we're still settling a lot of pension disputes, but there is no doubt he saved IBM. We are the premier technology company in the world. I work on a project that originated in a research lab. I feel like my company has taken the "Engineering" mantle away from HP, even though we are traditionally led by marketing and salespeople. Yes, even though they are marketing and salespeople, they are people with a clue. Our current CEO, Sam Palmisano said it best "We don't package stuff off the shelf and have the gall to call ourselves technologists".
It will take a decade or more to rebuild and replace the desctuction of Her Incompetanceness.
That's probably about as long as it will take, but in today's market - that's too long. Dell will probably eventually kill them in the low-mid end arena. High end? They've burned a LOT of trust there, and IBM (perhaps even Sun) are quite willing to pick up high end computing needs. No one cares about their unix anymore either.
Sad to say, but a significant part of what people have associated with the name of HP is simply never going to recover. With the right direction, they can revitalize many sectors, but as far as HP and computing goes, they'll be dead in a few years.
Gee, and here I was thinking that what we really need is leadership and not management. This only confirms it.
Carly may have killed innovation at HP, but it doesn't mean that innovation in America has been killed - just pushed back to the garage.
There has been a truism that is as true today as when it was coined back in the early 1800's: Americans invent as the French paint, or the Italians sculpt.
It is our nature to innovate. If it is not happening at Lucent, HP or wherever, it will revert back to the garage where countless American innovations have started. Analysts that look to HP and Lucent (Bell Labs) for innovation in the future are sure to be blind-sided by the invention they didn't see coming from some garage or shed somehwere in this great land of ours.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
The Carly disease is endemic in America and I'm glad I will be long gone when we follow the path of the Roman Empire. It started a long time before she got there but obviously she is a iconic model of a great many powerful players, otherwise she would have never made it in the first place. Todays business model is exactly that told by the unnamed engineer. Sell, exploit or kill the brain pool by purchasing modest lack luster competitors who sell crappy products but have needed patents.
The 5 year ramp up time of new product development is fast becoming just a dream. I work in RD. Management complains about our average age of 55 years. Unfortunately the majority of younger recruits with new degrees take as much as ten years to develop common sense and work ethics let alone a working vocabulary.
The real problems are deeply embedded in our society and educational system. Even though our productivity remains the highest in the world, time is running out. In twenty years the leaders will be China and India. The US will become a Third World Nation with Nukes.
I agree with most of what you say, apart from the smart arse remark about her getting the job because of her looks. Carly Fiorina is a very adept saleswoman and *that* is what got her the job at HP. For all her faults, she must have made a significant enough impression with the HP board with her performance at Lucent to be at least considered. In spite of the lefty rantings of many Slashdot pundits, most chief executives are not straight out of Dilbert or Office Space. A good many of them are actually quite intelligent, competent people, who do a very servicable job at the helm of many publicly traded companies.
We only hear about the dishonest or incompetent ones at the moment because of the shenanigans at organisations like WorldCom, Enron and Tyco. When I look at the CEO's of the companies in which I am invested, I actually feel relatively confident that my investment will continue to grow over time, without smearing their reputation by being investiagted by regulatory authorities.
" Carly wasn't the root source of problem, the boneheads that hired her and let her run the company into the toilet were and are the problem."
You're pointing out what everyone else seems to be missing; the board of directors backed Aunt Carly, even against the son of one of the founders. They knew full well her business plan was the slash and burn the place and turn it into an IBM-Dell hybrid wannabee. They approved all the way, and fought on her side during the Compaq aquisition.
Good on them for firing her, but if they give a shit about HP and want to own up to their mistake, their next actions should be mass resignations, and an invitation to Walter Hewlett to lead the new board of directors.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I stand by my statement about "lefties". A good number of people on Slashdot espouse socialist ideals -- that makes them left leaning, IMHO. Your characterisation of the board room is also completely off base. How is it that when the board and CEO make decisions, that they don't matter? It matters an awful lot in the case of things like M&A, executive compensation, shareholder returns (e.g. share buybacks, dividends) decisions on expanding (or contracting) in certain markets and a host of other strategic decisions. It's like saying that decisions made in the White House, Downing Street or other heads of states offices aren't important to taxpayers.