Considerably more relevant than what is left of HP-the-company. Every time I use my trusty HP-12C I feel a little sad for what was lost in the slash-and-burn era of Fiorina. Swiss Micros keeping the dream alive!
It's easy to blame Carly Fiorina for HP's decline, she was leading the company during the downturn of the 2000s. That said, I don't think it's entirely fair: that was a tough time all around! Many companies went belly-up during the dot-com bust[0], like MCI Worldcom, Gateway, etc.
Looking back, it seems like her decision to double-down on computing hardware (servers, desktops, laptops, printers, etc.) and Intel technology (at the expense of their own, like the tech from Apollo or DEC/Compaq's Alpha) immediately before the dot-com bust were the really disastrous decisions.
It's almost like she didn't know the dot-com bust was right around the corner! :-P
Carly was a terrible leader but she, in a sense, was selected for her known personality by a system that had already gone off the cliff. A number of books came out around that time about the HP board and its internal/external conflicts.
I had a job for a while watching the current HP for technological and business developments and it was like being a gawker at a side show.
That's putting it mildly. In terms of both jobs and shareholder value destroyed, she has a decent shot at the title of "Worst CEO Ever", of any company.
Just as devil's advocate, was she that much worse than the other Dear Leaders of her corporate generation? Mark Hurd, Meg Whitman, Ginni Rometty? Heck, even the older but monstrously odious Jack Welch can fit in this cauldron.
The idea of something like the HP Way is anathema to such people.
was she that much worse than the other Dear Leaders of her corporate generation? Mark Hurd, Meg Whitman, Ginni Rometty?
Elizabeth Holmes has set the bar to a new low, but Fiorina is right down there with Welch. So much destruction and for what? How many years have those people set the world back?
If a company employs tens of thousands of proven engineers and can’t think of a single useful thing for them to work on then that is absolutely 100% an utter, abject failure of management.
