Someone Has Domain for Carly Fiorina’s Name and Is Pretty Upset with Her Layoffs(techcrunch.com)
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Someone Has Domain for Carly Fiorina’s Name and Is Pretty Upset with Her Layoffs
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/04/someone-has-a-domain-for-carly-fiorinas-name-and-is-pretty-upset-with-her-layoffs-while-at-hp/
8 comments
It's a bit hard to answer this on mobile and get all of the links in, but there was quite a bit of controversy around these lay offs. The first was that she ordered the layoffs but reopened the same number of jobs in foreign countries, and in many cases more jobs. The work force of HP actually grew significantly over her tenure, just with cheaper foreign labor.
This is in contrast to Meg Whitman who, during my personal tenure at HP, laid off far more employees than Carly. Meg though did not try to add back head count in a cheaper way. She was just reducing the work force, which was needed. When I started HP had 360,000 employees, post Carly. (Disclosure: I was laid off from HP during a Whitman lay off).
The other thing which made Carly's lay off controversial was that they changed HPs technical ecosystem pretty significantly. For most of HPs history they had been giving employees significant amounts of equity in the company. When Carly came in there were high ranking technologist with quite a bit of voting ability due to their stock holdings. This put a real cramp on the executives ability to make decisions without those pesky engineers using logic to ruin it. When she first came in, for example, she couldn't get board approval to lay people off.
To solve the problem Carly did two things. First she diluted the value of the existing stock by merging with compaq. After that the existing power that the engineers held was diluted enough that she could make the decisions she wanted without as much problem.
This is where the quote having to do with laying people off quicker comes from. She really had to work for those lay offs by restructuring a company first. Another often heard comment from her was that a business as big as HP should never be run or managed by engineers... We have MBAs for that.
She was not well liked.
This is in contrast to Meg Whitman who, during my personal tenure at HP, laid off far more employees than Carly. Meg though did not try to add back head count in a cheaper way. She was just reducing the work force, which was needed. When I started HP had 360,000 employees, post Carly. (Disclosure: I was laid off from HP during a Whitman lay off).
The other thing which made Carly's lay off controversial was that they changed HPs technical ecosystem pretty significantly. For most of HPs history they had been giving employees significant amounts of equity in the company. When Carly came in there were high ranking technologist with quite a bit of voting ability due to their stock holdings. This put a real cramp on the executives ability to make decisions without those pesky engineers using logic to ruin it. When she first came in, for example, she couldn't get board approval to lay people off.
To solve the problem Carly did two things. First she diluted the value of the existing stock by merging with compaq. After that the existing power that the engineers held was diluted enough that she could make the decisions she wanted without as much problem.
This is where the quote having to do with laying people off quicker comes from. She really had to work for those lay offs by restructuring a company first. Another often heard comment from her was that a business as big as HP should never be run or managed by engineers... We have MBAs for that.
She was not well liked.
Should companies be run or managed by engineers? I'm not sure that's actually a good idea as much as I'm not overly fond of MBA types either.
I think it's a faulty generalization either way, companies should be run by competent passionate people.
I think it's a faulty generalization either way, companies should be run by competent passionate people.
The reason a comment like that particularly stung at HP was that for the first 50+ years HP was rather successfully run by Bill Hewlett (Masters of Electrical Engineering at MIT), and Dave Packard (Masters of Electrical Engineering at Stanford). A lot of the people high up at HP while Carly was CEO remember fond lunches and dinner parties with Dave and Bill, they were quite active in the company.
I agree that MBAs aren't a bad thing, and HP had many for a lot of years before Carly. But I would argue that it's exceptionally hard to change a company culture so drastically. And it can he detrimental to the organization as a whole.
I agree that MBAs aren't a bad thing, and HP had many for a lot of years before Carly. But I would argue that it's exceptionally hard to change a company culture so drastically. And it can he detrimental to the organization as a whole.
Yeah I agree, HP had a very engineer centric culture and history so that must have been hard. I guess the dream of a company is always to find those unicorns that are both Engineer/MBA/Leader/Designers etc. In the end business people can be competent, but people with domain knowledge can be visionary (Scully vs Jobs for example)
I can only speak about the german car industry, and over here, every manufacturer is lead by an engineer. Let that sink in for a minute.
Ferdinand Piëch said in his autobiography:
"[The leader] must have a technical background, as a development- or production technician. He has to have an integral (not quickly acquired) passion for cars and be able to think ten years ahead. The technical foundation is required in order to develop the necessary phantasy."
I think the "develop the necessary phantasy" is the interesting part, as I think this matches Steve Job's approach, too. No engineer could bullshit him, because he knew exactly what was possible. He knew when it was possible to build the iPhone, when the RIM CEOs didn't even believe it when it was revealed to the world.
Ferdinand Piëch said in his autobiography:
"[The leader] must have a technical background, as a development- or production technician. He has to have an integral (not quickly acquired) passion for cars and be able to think ten years ahead. The technical foundation is required in order to develop the necessary phantasy."
I think the "develop the necessary phantasy" is the interesting part, as I think this matches Steve Job's approach, too. No engineer could bullshit him, because he knew exactly what was possible. He knew when it was possible to build the iPhone, when the RIM CEOs didn't even believe it when it was revealed to the world.
I was always under the impression that Steve Jobs did not have much of a technical background
After realizing he could always make a living as a halfway decent engineer while working for Atari, he just chose a different path. Maybe seeing Woz in action helped him make that decision.
My impression has always been that many MBA folks were engineers to start with. A lot of MBA programs are structured to teach business acumen to folks that didn't take a 4 year business / commerce degree to start with.
> My impression has always been that many MBA folks were engineers to start with.
You were very lucky in your meetings with MBAs.
> A lot of MBA programs are structured to teach business acumen to folks that didn't take a 4 year business / commerce degree to start with..
Yeah, and in most cases they didn't take a 4 year engineering degree either.
You were very lucky in your meetings with MBAs.
> A lot of MBA programs are structured to teach business acumen to folks that didn't take a 4 year business / commerce degree to start with..
Yeah, and in most cases they didn't take a 4 year engineering degree either.
So what you are saying is... fine arts major + MBA = recipe for success!
Thanks for this insight, I absolutely agree that diluting the value of stock was a bad move by her.
Regarding the first point you made I'm somehow split. The mere act of laying off employees to hire more cheap labor in other countries can in some cases make sense from a business perspective.
How you feel about that comes down to the personal value system you have. I think most people would agree that one important task of any business is to benefit the community. (by paying wages, taxes or creating cheaper services and products)
The question here is how much benefit to the community is enough. From a purely legal perspective paying taxes and obeying all laws is sufficient.
One might also argue that she created jobs oversees where now other communities benefit.
For me personally it was wrong to do what she did, as long as it wasn't necessary for the survival of the company, but I also recognise that I can't demand from any business to follow my personal value system in addition to the laws we have.
Regarding the first point you made I'm somehow split. The mere act of laying off employees to hire more cheap labor in other countries can in some cases make sense from a business perspective.
How you feel about that comes down to the personal value system you have. I think most people would agree that one important task of any business is to benefit the community. (by paying wages, taxes or creating cheaper services and products)
The question here is how much benefit to the community is enough. From a purely legal perspective paying taxes and obeying all laws is sufficient.
One might also argue that she created jobs oversees where now other communities benefit.
For me personally it was wrong to do what she did, as long as it wasn't necessary for the survival of the company, but I also recognise that I can't demand from any business to follow my personal value system in addition to the laws we have.
Fiorina is known for leading the acquisition of Compaq Corp. in 2001 in the largest tech merger in history. In doing so, she would show cost savings by layoffs of a certain chunk of employees. "Cost synergies" was the label. I think the expected number at the time was around 10k. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=23061...
In the next 4 years, Fiorina would sell off the printing business (which had higher margins) and double-down on the PC business (with lower margins.) Timing as it was, the dot-com bubble burst which affected every hardware maker (since tech companies needed to buy hardware to operate.)
She basically made the absolute wrong bets, and as a result many jobs were destroyed. Between HP and Compaq, the collective companies lost more than $13 Billion in shareholder value. Other companies did at that time as well, but HP was by far the worst.
When tracing the history of HP performance during Fiorina's tenure as CEO, she is arguably one of the worst who has ever guided a publicly-traded US company. A simple before-and-after of the company's position from the day she took leadership until the day she left is not a pretty picture.
In the next 4 years, Fiorina would sell off the printing business (which had higher margins) and double-down on the PC business (with lower margins.) Timing as it was, the dot-com bubble burst which affected every hardware maker (since tech companies needed to buy hardware to operate.)
She basically made the absolute wrong bets, and as a result many jobs were destroyed. Between HP and Compaq, the collective companies lost more than $13 Billion in shareholder value. Other companies did at that time as well, but HP was by far the worst.
When tracing the history of HP performance during Fiorina's tenure as CEO, she is arguably one of the worst who has ever guided a publicly-traded US company. A simple before-and-after of the company's position from the day she took leadership until the day she left is not a pretty picture.
She also spun out the original HP business of test and measurement equipment, chips, transceivers, etc as Agilent (now Keysight). I never ever thought of HP as a computer company. To me HP was oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, and lightwave measurement gear. Spinning Agilent out was shocking to many people at the time.
When she sold off printing and spun out Agilent, what were the results? If they did better on their own then with HP, then that was a smart move, even if "HP" as a company was diminished. If she sold them for cash and invested that poorly, then that was not a smart move.
Yup.
Those who say that the firings were justified are probably correct, but if Fiorina is running for a position where she is expected to “create jobs,” her record at this task should be front and center.
Those who say that the firings were justified are probably correct, but if Fiorina is running for a position where she is expected to “create jobs,” her record at this task should be front and center.
I don't think you can put someone in the "worst ever" category without bankruptcy. There has been a lot of very shitty CEOs over the years, some of them criminal.
Bankruptcy and criminality? Enron[1] comes to mind.
Kenneth Lay[2], the founder and final CEO of Enron, was convicted of multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud, and would have been one of the few CEOs to have actually been sent to prison. However, he died before the judge had the chance to sentence him. Enron, of course, suffered bankruptcy.
Jeffrey Skilling[3], who stepped down as CEO of Enron (to be replaced by Lay), is currently serving a lengthy prison term.
HP may have suffered under Fiorina, but at least they're still alive.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay#Indictment_and_tri...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling
Kenneth Lay[2], the founder and final CEO of Enron, was convicted of multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud, and would have been one of the few CEOs to have actually been sent to prison. However, he died before the judge had the chance to sentence him. Enron, of course, suffered bankruptcy.
Jeffrey Skilling[3], who stepped down as CEO of Enron (to be replaced by Lay), is currently serving a lengthy prison term.
HP may have suffered under Fiorina, but at least they're still alive.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay#Indictment_and_tri...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling
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I agree that sometimes it is necessary to lay off employees for the good of the company. But Fiorina is widely considered to have been a complete incompetent as CEO, of which the layoffs were a symptom, and she was fired by the board of directors. That's enough for me to consider her with extreme skepticism. I must also say that I'm not impressed with business school-grad tech executives who don't know anything about coding or hardware, especially if they're also proven incompetents.
It is unpopular because the average employee being laid off will have had much less influence than a CEO on the reasons that ultimately led to the (necessary) measure, but he/she will be the one facing the consequences.
The worst that can happen to unsuccessful CEOs is being replaced (IF the situation does not improve after the layoffs) while netting a generous severance pay.
I agree that rationally such backlash it's unreasonable, but humans are not rational beings, especially when perceiving something as unfair.
The worst that can happen to unsuccessful CEOs is being replaced (IF the situation does not improve after the layoffs) while netting a generous severance pay.
I agree that rationally such backlash it's unreasonable, but humans are not rational beings, especially when perceiving something as unfair.
> The worst that can happen to unsuccessful CEOs is being replaced (IF the situation does not improve after the layoffs) while netting a generous severance pay.
And then run for office touting your hugely successful time as CEO, just make sure you have enough money to run enough ads to support this claim rather than the realities that are your failures.
And then run for office touting your hugely successful time as CEO, just make sure you have enough money to run enough ads to support this claim rather than the realities that are your failures.
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"bonus page" -> http://carlyfiorina.org/bonus-page.html
Some pretty clean and concise static markup for your typical internet smear site.
Some pretty clean and concise static markup for your typical internet smear site.
I noticed that too, I wanted to see if he had marked-uped 30k unsmiles or if it was a script that printed them.
Credit link to the original sheep in CSS too.
Well done !
A simple and efective landing page:
http://carlyfiorina.org
Still scrolling...
Still scrolling...
I can't wrap my head around the fact that I actually believe this is a reasonable way to visualize the data.
I've been pondering this for a little while -- I agree with you, and I think it's because the point being conveyed isn't the data, but the scale.
Exactly. 32 bytes from /dev/random doesn't sound like much. 2^256 still doesn't sound like much. But 115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007913129639936 makes your point (the point being that it's a effing big number).
One possibility that hasn't been mentioned is that this could be a political smear attempt as well.
That is all it is. His twitter feed consists nearly entirely of retweets promoting Democrats and smearing republicans.
How scandalous it is to like one political party and hate another.
Personally, I think it is stupid to become attached to one party. You get the current state of US politics when people become so entrenched and invested in one party. People would rather vote in a bad candidate from their chosen party rather than vote for the better candidate.
That's only relevant if your political beliefs lie roughly in the middle of the American spectrum. If not, it should be clear that no matter how shit one candidate is, the other one will certainly be worse.
Unless you're talking about voting Green or something, which is fine.
Unless you're talking about voting Green or something, which is fine.
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Layoffs are political, too. Any time someone's income or power is affected, it's political. It's a rather large scope.
(lacklustre) Easter Egg: http://carlyfiorina.org/bonus-page.html
So someone bought a sign with the name "carlyfiorina" on it and is trying to gather opinion against that person. This is apparently a failure.
The root domain contains 810 top-level domains, which in theory means 810 possible places where one could register a carlyfiorina.sometld. no mater how aggressive a person is trying to own that specific 12 letter word, its a futile attempt, especially if we also include the 1-2 letter sub domains of tld's. As such, not registering this name is as big failure as not buying up all the signs that exist in stores.
The root domain contains 810 top-level domains, which in theory means 810 possible places where one could register a carlyfiorina.sometld. no mater how aggressive a person is trying to own that specific 12 letter word, its a futile attempt, especially if we also include the 1-2 letter sub domains of tld's. As such, not registering this name is as big failure as not buying up all the signs that exist in stores.
Funny. Though whether you like her or not Carly Fiornia has no chance at becoming president or being nominated as the Republican nominee.
One could create a similar page to represent people who have purchased HP multifunction inkjet printers.
Sometimes this must be done rather quick.
I don't know the exact reasons why she had to lay off 30.000 employees but it would look less like a public smearing if the creator of this page gave us some insight into the details and nature of her decision.
I just doubt that she is plain evil and laughing at the pain she has caused with this decision.