Just a few days ago I was reading a big spread in Fortune about Carly Fiorina at HP, the troubles the company was having and the questions that perhaps the board was asking. And now she’s gone.
The stock is up 10%, probably on the assumption that the company will now be broken up and the printer part will be left to do its own thing (the printer guys make almost all of the profits and count for most of the valuation; the rest comes for free).
I’m sorry to see Carly go. She’s an incredibly smart woman, passionately dedicated to the merged business that HP/Compaq had become. Indeed, the measures she took to make the merger happen could have been equalled by no other. Next stop politics?
Smart\’s not the word that comes to mind if you were holding HP stock at $40 when she took over!Ok, shit happens when you are a smart CEO, so she does a $25Bn mega-deal with Compaq taking HP from $20 then to free-fall to $10 firing over 10,000 employees on the way.This year HP has been creeping along below $20.50 mark, $25Bn didn\’t buy HP much value did it? Meanwhile IBM head in the other direction.I agree with you though that in Bush govt she will be a redwood amongst the pines, time to go spend lotss of public sector money instead on her next wild goose chase.Do tell more how you tag her as smart though and will you buy stock in the next venture she joins?
Smart\’s not the word that comes to mind if you were holding HP stock at $40 when she took over!Ok, shit happens when you are a smart CEO, so she does a $25Bn mega-deal with Compaq taking HP from $20 then to free-fall to $10 firing over 10,000 employees on the way.This year HP has been creeping along below $20.50 mark, $25Bn didn\’t buy HP much value did it? Meanwhile IBM head in the other direction.I agree with you though that in Bush govt she will be a redwood amongst the pines, time to go spend lotss of public sector money instead on her next wild goose chase.Do tell more how you tag her as smart though and will you buy stock in the next venture she joins?