[purpledove]

I can't take this seriously - blaming an individual, especially a CEO, for destroying a corporate culture is ridiculous. I know essentially nothing about the history of HP, but what I do know is that the board bears ultimate responsibility for big decisions, for example a massive layoff.

There is also the distinct possibility that the 'HP Way' was sacrificed to save the company. Again, I know nothing of the history, but putting out a hit piece like this right before the election is just crude.

[jbooth]

I can't take this seriously - blaming an individual, especially a CEO, for destroying a corporate culture is ridiculous.

I think this is actually the dumbest thing I've ever seen written on Hacker News. If the CEO isn't responsible for corporate culture, then A) Who is? and B) What's the CEO responsible for?

[okaramian]

And why are CEOs getting paid way more than everyone else if they have zero responsibility? Seems like an absolutely sweet gig if you can get paid and shirk any responsibility for a company's failure.

[MrFlibble]

Just convince the board that you are a CEO and they should hire you.

It worked for a friend I know who is a film producer who faked his early resumé as "Producer" and kept getting hired as a such. He would hire good staff & they'd pretty much run the show. He learned producing on the job and quickly replaced the fake resumé jobs with real ones. Thing is, all it took was convincing someone he actually was a Producer. I think many CEOs do the same thing. Walk the walk, talk the talk and hope your employees don't screw up.

[ezy]

It is. You get paid either way.

[hugh3]

It's still a political hit piece which would not exist in the alternative universe where this week's California Republican senate candidate is, say, Tom Campbell.

There may be a time and a place for discussing the upsides and downsides of any particular CEO's tenure at any given company, but it would probably be much better to discuss it when said CEO is not standing for election in less than a week, so that people's feelings on politics don't cloud their opinions on technology management.

I know nothing about Carly Fiorina's time as CEO of HP, but am disinclined to trust anyone's opinion on the subject this week. Can we talk about Geoffrey Immelt's CEOship of General Electric instead?

[_delirium]

That seems like a particularly relevant time to talk about it, though. When someone from the tech industry is being proposed for some position with greater power, isn't that a good time to review the existing information as a basis on which to make decisions? I'd say the same of positive reviews: if someone thought Fiorina was a great CEO, now, when people are about to make decisions about whether she should be a Senator or not, is a great time to write that piece and tell us why. I guess it'll still be relevant for the history books to write it in 10 years, but it's more practically useful to write it when people can actually use the information.

[anigbrowl]

A lot of people on HN do know something about it, both as techies and as residents of the area. Listening to their opinions or not is your prerogative, but if you live in California I wonder what criteria you feel she should be evaluated on besides her history running a tech giant.

[hugh3]

but if you live in California I wonder what criteria you feel she should be evaluated on besides her history running a tech giant

Indeed, taking her experience into account, and comparing it to that of Barbara Boxer, is a good idea when you're deciding for whom to vote (unless you're just going to vote on ideology as most people do anyway). But the subject then is still "politics" rather than "tech news".

[anigbrowl]

This has never stopped you before :)

Incidentally, I do think she has a chance of victory. And I also think she and boxer share the same weakness - lack of answers for the underlying problem. Fiorina and other CEOs didn't outsource thousands of jobs to Asia because regulatory compliance was tedious, they did so because the skill level required for a great many jobs is available at a fraction of the price elsewhere. Even if we cut the price of doing business in the USA by 25% in the morning and made administration, regulation and healthcare cheap and easy for all, low-tech manufacturing and services would still be a lot more expensive in the USA than in China or India, and within a few years we'd be back to where we are now.

We need internal reforms, and there are some valid proposals for what to reform and how from both the left and the right. But the big question, to which neither party has proposed any good answers, is how to productively employ the least skilled members of the workforce so that they can have a reasonable level of economic security. People often talk about reviving US manufacturing; that sounds like a fine idea, but first we must identify what we can make that everyone will prefer to buy. In other words, what comparative advantage do we have in manufacturing over the developing world? If no such advantage exists, how can we redeploy that part of our labor force?

I like the green jobs idea, but wind turbines and solar panels can't make up 5% of the economy for the long term.

[jbooth]

Well, did Tom Campbell run a major corporation nearly into the ground and leave with literally everybody saying he's a major screwup?

Everybody's been saying she was a disaster for half of a decade. And yes, it's relevant to someone who attempts to make "business experience" a reason to vote for them.

[mikeryan]

I have to disagree, I would think that the CEO would be the single most important individual in defining, creating and driving a corporate culture.

[gamble]

I agree, but in the case of HP I would add that the board has been entirely capable of disgracing itself independently of Fiorina. Fiorina, Hurd, and Apotheker didn't manifest out of thin air, after all.

[pstuart]

Steve Jobs comes to mind as a perfect example (in the positive sense).

[gaius]

Agreed. Infact you could say that that's what a CEO does.

[jacquesm]

The funny thing is that you're both right and wrong. You're wrong in that the CEO is the person most responsible for corporate culture, everything else flows from there.

But in this particular case, the HP way was 'on the way out' for a while before she ever joined the company, the Agilent spin-off was already in the works before she took over as CEO.

I'm sure that she carries her portion on the blame for what came next though, but spinning off Agilent was definitely not a smart move because it was to a large extent the strongest hold-out of 'the hp way'.