Talk:Carly Fiorina

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[edit] Neutrality

Seems to me that the article as looked at in May of 2006 after HP has put out its income report - is as about as neutral as it needs to be. You take this marketing whizz who drives the company into the ground - makes very strange decisions - note that at one time she was going to have HP buy an accounting firm!!! - and did not handle the merger with Compaq in a business like matter. She must be grinding her teeth today looking at the tremendous good figures released May 17, 2006 by HP - all done after she was fired and a very quiet guy came in - didn't make waves - his only comments being " we're trying to make this a good company." Look at what happened at Apple with another marketing 'star' - Jobs came back and got things going. The moral of the whole debacle at HP - - - Don't hire a marketing star unless they have a good history (which she didn't - look at Lucent for instance) - and can do more than market. I see another comment said that she "held on far longer than she sould have purely based on her gender." Perhaps - but I think that this be looked at on a gender neutral basis - and just say - look for more than a pretty face - male OR female.

Some of this article needs to be re-written from a neural point of view. --Cmoxon 08:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

She ran the company into the ground and held on far longer than she should have purely based on her gender and her political connections. How do you spin that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.83.113.202 (talk • contribs) 23:28, 14 May 2006.

Regardless of her conduct and performance, a neutral tone should be maintained. This is to prevent potential bias issues from occuring. Wikipedia is meant to be fact-based, not opinionated. Torinir

I tagged this article, because it continues to be tremendously biased. Attempts to correct a former heavy bias against Fiorina have not helped the matter, on the contrary. This article represents some of the worst of Wikipedia: It appears that some of the authors have a very personal ax to grind, others try to correct the bias with material that seems to want to prove that she's a good person after all, and finally someone adds personal trivia, none of which belongs in an encyclopdia. The achievement of Carly Fiorina continues to be inadequately represented. This article should be rewritten from scratch. I am still looking around for an adequate model (articles on Lou Gerstner, Jack Welch, etc.), but neither of the articles I checked is of any quality -- the biography group at Wikipedia is in urgent need of people with business knowledge who represent the achievement of these business leaders objectively and with insight. Jinmex 00:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Just wanted to point out that the picture looks like it's being censored by a white square with digitalfreedom.gov written on it. Even in the full size picture, it's hard to tell that it's her podium and not editing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.74.192.85 (talk • contribs) 22:52, 29 April 2006.

It is odd. Why not use the official HP photo of her? http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/bios/fiorina.html 06:02, 18 July 2006 User999999

This is a sufficiently neutral article. Fiorina's poor leadership of HP was demonstrably clear. Far from this being a gender issue, the reality is that she proved to be an ego maniac whose personal interests/ambitions were prioritized over the good of the company at the expense of its shareholders, employees and customers. That is probably the most damning indictment possible against a corporate officer/director short of being part of Enron's leadership team. Thus I respectfully suggest that if anything, the article could readily afford to be more critical of Fiorina without being at risk of violating wikipedia neutrality guidelines for there is overwhelming evidence against her. The preceding unsigned comment was added on 23:22, 22 May 2006.

[edit] Previous Talk

Someone was fast in updating the info on her getting fired.

She's made lots of friends during her career.
Atlant 15:50, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
More enemies than friends, I should say. Or perhaps you were being sarcastic.--A. S. A. 16:11, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
Well, considering that she has had a big hand in the ruination of at least three companies that I had tremendous respect for, perhaps I was. ;-)
Atlant 17:02, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
She is a woman who understands the limits to growth on our much exploited planet. She was bound to make many friends and enemies.
User:18.120.0.135

It's hard to believe anyone is disputing the fact that she was fired, or trying to sugarcoat it by saying she resigned after she was asked to do so. It was a clear-cut boardroom ousting. Also, I read up on several articles analyzing the post-Fiorina prospects, and found no mention of Compaq devolving once again into an independent company. If you wish to include this reference, please cite it.--A. S. A. 11:42, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Most sources are saying that HP will likely split their printer and computer businesses, rather than an HP/Compaq split. Andros 1337 13:26, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Pundits and industry experts may be saying that, but I think the truth is quite the opposite. NPR reported yesterday [1] that the board thinks that the company is more valuable with a "diverse portfolio", and thus wants to keep the company together, and is going to be searching for a CEO who thinks the same. -- Plutor 14:19, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] severance package

I followed the link given as source for the numbers about her parting benefits, but here the total amount is given as $21 million, not $42 million. Did I overlook something? regards, High on a tree 04:08, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Receptionist?

What she a receptionist somewhere? -- Toytoy 01:56, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. This information is verifiable, cited, and visible in the following revision, but the verifiable information was deleted, instead of edited, in an overzealous revert. Feel free to put the information back if you want to fight the reverters. Old version: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carly_Fiorina&oldid=14871955 BBC source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1524555.stm

[edit] Way too many links in the first paragraph

Can some be removed? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Snafuu (talk • contribs) 15:03, 30 July 2005.

[edit] This shows up Wikipedia's weakness

I'd never heard of this woman before today. This 'encyclopaedia' article about her is crude and uninformative, and I suspect, highly biased.

55% out of 100. It would be 40%, but it's 'free' after all.

[edit] Weakness? Well, maybe

If you have never heard of her before, you probably don't work in the computer business. Her mismanagement of HP is now legendary.

It is a bit crude, yes. But it is not as bad as you think. If it is be about the truth, it has to be fairly brutal since the HP story is not a pretty story.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.129.124.44 (talk • contribs) 18:03, 28 April 2006.

Regardless of whether Carly drove the company into the ground or made it the #1 company in the world, the article needs to be written in neutral tones. The language used in the current article appears very negative and needs a rewrite. Torinir

An article can be written that is NPOV and yet very negative towards its subject. For example, an article on smallpox does not need to present a 50/50 view of the goodness of smallpox versus the badness. In the same way, an article about Carly Fiorina can be NPOV while still reflecting very badly on Ms. Fiorina's management "accomplishments".
Atlant 23:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Carly did not drive the company into the ground; quite the opposite. In the wake of the bursting of the dot-com bubble, a lot of tech companies were hurting, Hewlett-Packard not least among them. Compaq was headed towards bankruptcy despite Capellas' staving it off as much as possible, and HP wasn't far behind.

The merger was purely a business move - and a shrewd one. The combined PC market share put Hewlett Packard into the #1 spot, and "efficiencies" - layoffs of people in duplicated functions across the two companies - made that part of the company marginally profitable, as opposed to break even at HP and money losing at Compaq. More importantly, combining the service operations kept the bottom line from continuing to evaporate. HP continued to lose market share for a few months after the merger, as predicted in the merger plans, but that market share actually stabilized above where it was expected to stabilize.

The merger itself was executed much more smoothly than expected, thanks largely to Capellas' operational skill. HP would perhaps have been better off with Capellas continuing as COO, but it's pretty clear that Carly planned for him to leave after the job of merging operations was done, whether he knew that or not.

The dislike for Carly stems from two sources. The first is engineers who had been treated well under the old HP and ended up laid off under the merger. The fact is, though, that the post-burst tech world wasn't the world of the 1950s HP any more, and that model would not have survived. The second is Wall street stock pickers who feel threatened by woman CEOs for some reason. In their mind, Carly was the reason HP stock tanked in the wake of the dot-com bubble, while none of the male CEOs whose tech companies followed the same stock price curve got blamed.

And yes, I owned HP stock at the time, I voted for the merger, and I made money from it. Making money for the stockholders is the bottom line for any CEO. Warren Dew (talk) 06:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "And there was much rejoicing!"

Editors recently excised this statement:

When Carly Fiorina left Hewlett-Packard, there was much rejoicing by employees and analysts alike.

I'll leave it excised, but I have it on very good authority that at more than one H/P worksite, after Fiorina was fired, employees were observed going around singing Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead, only they didn't say "witch". To say she wasn't popular at least among the technical staff would be an understatement.

I was told the hebrew HP and IBM employees celebrated together and sang Hava Negila so much they had trouble speaking the next day, it was like Purim re-scheduled. She is probably the single most hated personality in IT, beats W. H. G. III hands down. I even heard someone say "Shall Carly Fiorina harass you as you sleep" i.e. depict her as a succubus. 82.131.210.162 (talk) 14:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Atlant 18:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

That was my edit. I just decided to register earlier today - hence no username yesterday. I recognise that it is probably on the whole an accurate statement; however, to someone without prior knowledge, it may give the wrong impression. I thought it ought to be rephrased, but couldn't think of a better phrasing. It appeared to me at least that it would be better out than in, so I removed it. (I probably should have brought it up on the talk page first; sorry, I'm not an experienced user). Perhaps something more obviously factual, along the lines of "Fiorina's unpopularity within the company meant that her departure was widely celebrated by HP employees", or something like that, would be more suitable. It would also need some reference to the "analysts" mentioned in the original sentence, but I'm not sure what sort of analysts it was referring to, so that could do with some clarification. WRT "ousting", you're entirely correct. Sorry. --Phunky 15:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Gnarlodious says: I was sort of expecting to read about how Carly Fiorina ruined the company. HP had always been a company for engineers, by engineers. Carly Fiorina turned it into just another consumer product mill. The huge loyalty of engineers was lost, and today HP is more devoted to printers and cameras that calibration and test equipment. It is very possible most readers do not know what the original purpose of HP was, and why Carly Fiorina was so reviled by them. This seems to be an historical omission in the page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gnarlodious (talk • contribs) .

Stephend01 says: To be fair, HP announced plans to spin-off it's scientific products (including Test & Measurement) as Agilent Technologies in 1999, just prior Ms. Fiorina's arrival. It is Agilent that now holds the heritage of Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard's original Silicon Valley start-up (although, ironically, HP bought and own the Garage in Palo Alto where the business was started. It was purchased under Fiorina's tenure for preservation purposes, but as it was a Test & Measurement 'facility' it should be the Agilent Garage rather than the HP one!). Stephend01 07:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anything positive to be said?

While it may be that she made a lot of mistakes at HP, are there still no positive comments to be made? I wouldn't go so far as to call this article 'biased', but it does seem to be lacking some balanced dialogue. I'd love to see some more history about her early career, as well as a better, more in depth discussion as to why her decisions were viewed as so harmful to the company by so many people. We should also consider an explanation/discussion regarding her book, now that it is on shelves. Perditor 21:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased is an understatement

This article seems more like a personal smear campaign against this woman, who lead the merger between the Hewlett and Packard families. She was clearly no saint, but she didn't "run the company into the ground"--unlike the CEO's of Enron, American Airlines, Adelphia etc. And the claim that she was "held on far longer than she should have purely based on her gender" is completely ridiculous. I mean, are we seriously suggesting that the American business world is being pussy-whipped by affirmative action feminists into retaining female CEO's? Scared, victimized, billionaire males on the board of directors at one of the most profitable companies in the United States? Please! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Erin1983 (talk • contribs) .

But many folks feel that the HP/COmpaq merger was clearly a mistake, both for corporate political reasons and for financial reasons. They (and I) would make the argument that "leading the merger" was clearly a failure, not a sucess on Fiorina's part. (I have no particular opinion on whether she "stayed too long", regardless of gender, but I do know from direct contacts that she was reviled by many of HP's employees.) --Atlant 18:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Now that the PC part of the business is doing very, very well, and selling lots of printers as a result, which bring in even more high-margin ink revenue ... perhaps the people who thought the merger was "clearly a mistake" should revisit that opinion. HP's PC biz was in the toilet pre-merger and the server biz was heading that way. The merger actually was one of CF's good decisions - the problem was that she wasn't focused on execution and ran off the people who were. Had she turned over operations to a strong COO, rather than absorb that into her own responsibilities, she might still be here. 15.235.153.101 19:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback by MONGO

MONGO has rolled this article back [2] to this version ... A very large portion of the edits made in the interim, now rolled back, were by socks of permanently banned user Amorrow, or tags added in response to things added by those socks. Users include RidinHood25 and 75.36.230.91, who did the bulk, as well as others. Please review the history for anything lost that is key. Please also keep WP:BLP in mind, don't just blindly add things back because they have a cite. This article was shifting in the direction of a smear job and Amorrow's recent edits were pushing it along. This sort of corrosive and damaging editing behaviour, possibly to be used as part of a real life stalking campaign, is why Amorrow is "ban on sight, revert on site" here. Please be on the lookout for suspicious edits and bring them to the attention of concerned editors. ++Lar: t/c 20:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] missing links

2003:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/67/carly.html
How Carly arrived at HP

2005:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?threshold=5&mode=nested&commentsort=0&op=Change&sid=141506
An Engineer's View of Carly Fiorina's Leadership

2005:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/02/07/8250437/index.htm
Why Carly's Big Bet is Failing

2005: 
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?threshold=5&mode=nested&commentsort=0&op=Change&sid=138854
HP CEO Carly Fiorina to Step Down

2006:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?threshold=5&mode=nested&commentsort=0&op=Change&sid=190623
Forbes Now Thinks Carly Saved HP

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0709/gallery.MPW_100_years.fortune/14.html
summary  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.116.132.217 (talk) 18:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)