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by ScottBurson 5377 days ago
During Whitman's gubernatorial campaign there was a great quote on SFGate, something like: "Meg Whitman is the only force in the universe that could compel me to vote for Jerry Brown." I felt the same way, pretty much.

I don't know much about her work at eBay, but the distant, autocratic way she ran her campaign -- she didn't get out and talk to people, she just stayed in her castle and put out ads -- strikes me as the antithesis of the management style needed by a company in crisis.
3 comments
elq 5377 days ago
I once got a chance to talk to Meg when I worked at eBay. After the, very brief, interaction I dubbed her "Queen Margaret" as the look on her face suggested that rabble like me shouldn't be seen, at least by the aristocracy.

Also, across the street from the eBay HQ in Campbell there was a restaurant that had failed and Hooters wanted to open a location in it's place. Meg fought Hooters for nearly two years.

Good luck HP, you're going to need it.

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cynest 5377 days ago
I had a similar experience when she visited my AP econ class shortly after declaring her candidacy. She displayed a mixture of being obviously uninformed and having contempt for her audience.
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parfe 5377 days ago
Whitman spent $144 million of her own money campaigning.

She is the type of person that feels $144 million in TV Ads is enough to buy public support rather than $100 million in charity and non profit work to build an image. I don't imagine her leadership of HP to be any different.

I expect her attitude to be "We can buy customers" rather than "We can earn respect and attract customers."

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earl 5377 days ago
Meg Whitman is, as far as I can tell, an incompetent moron.

Examine the skype acquisition: the way I understand, Meg/ebay acquired skype without buying the backing technology / p2p tech which remained owned by Joltid / Niklas / Janus. Ebay then went on to not pay some of the earnouts of the skype acquisition which I'm sure made Niklas / Janus think highly of ebay [1]. It literally boggles the mind that she could be stupid enough to acquire a company without owning the backing tech; it would be like a company buying an OS that came without ownership of the kernel. Niklas / Janus then used this to earn a bunch more money when ebay went on to sell skype.

For some background: http://gigaom.com/2009/09/01/ebay-skype-sale/

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2007/10/01/skype-ceo-zennstrom-steps-d...

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