Is Carly Fiorina and HewlettPackard a metaphor for the Bush presidency?

[billbuckhead]

The following is from toward the end of a Salon.com article by a reporter close to the scene at HP about Fiorina's firing at HP and what it means about our business culture.




End of a hatchet woman
Hewlett-Packard's ousted CEO Carly Fiorina destroyed a great company's creative soul and trashed its business.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Lawrence M. Fisher

from 2/3 of the way through the article.

"At the time, I was on staff at a consulting firm that was retained by one of the family foundations to analyze the merger. In the process, we spoke with a number of people close to both companies and their remarks were stunning. "The collision of two garbage trucks," was how one put it. "Doubling down on a dog," was another take. Without naming the firm, or their specific recommendations, it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that Carly's projections could only materialize if IBM, Dell and Sun Microsystems took a collective nap for the next five years, and every single one of her rosiest scenararios come true at once. Any resemblance to the Bush budget is entirely coincidental, I'm sure.


So why did she do it? For one reason: Wall Street loves big mergers. The investment banks collect immense fees for their roles as advisors, regardless of the ultimate soundness of the deal. And their securities analysts all write positive reports, which prompt a lot of rubes to buy shares, which generates a flood of trading commissions. Big mergers and acquisitions are almost always a net negative for the companies and communities involved, but a win-win for the bankers, lawyers and other deal makers.


A second reason is that it should have worked well enough for Carly to declare victory and move on to the political stage. Despite their dismal long-term success record, big mergers usually can "achieve synergies," Wall Street-speak for massive layoffs, which reduce costs enough to show a big if fleeting bump in earnings per share."

more <http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/02/10/carly/index.html>

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

1. Wow! That is really bad writing...

"At the time, I was on staff at a consulting firm that was retained by one of the family foundations to analyze the merger. In the process, we spoke with a number of people close to both companies and their remarks were stunning. "The collision of two garbage trucks," was how one put it. "Doubling down on a dog," was another take. Without naming the firm, or their specific recommendations, it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that Carly's projections could only materialize if IBM, Dell and Sun Microsystems took a collective nap for the next five years, and every single one of her rosiest scenararios come true at once. Any resemblance to the Bush budget is entirely coincidental, I'm sure.

At the time, I was on staff at an advertising firm for Compaq. Doesn't that makes me as qualified (if not more so) than the person who was "retained by one of the family foundations to analyze the merger"? Probably not, but at least I promise not to write flowery statements like: "The collision of two garbage trucks" and "Doubling down on a dog.". How old is the person who wrote that shit?

What happened with the HP-Compaq merger was a good example of really bad decisions and corporate arrogance. Many people who earned less than Carly et al paid dearly for this corporate hubris. I don't give a hoot about the chromosomes of the person who led this, it was a really bad strategy. Many people said it then and they can confirm it now.

Fiorina made some colossal mistakes. She managed to drive two powerful, pioneering high-tech companies into the ground. She now walks away from this pile-up with US$21M in cash and probably lucrative opportunities on the corporate speakers' tour.

Stretching this into an allegory of the Bush** administration seems unnecessary to me -- we should simply point to it as yet another corporate mind-fuck gone bad. Blivet** and pals are producing enough evil without having to use HP as a cudgel.

{Edited for stunningly bad grammatical errors. I should either stop drinking or posting... let's see which.}