Fiorina's first act as senator: Merge California and Nevada

"I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation. I don't think Barack Obama could run a major corporation. I don't think Joe Biden could, either. But it is not the same as being the president or vice president of the United States. It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company. To run a business, you have to have a lifetime of experience in business, but that's not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Barack Obama or Joe Biden are doing."
- Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina

(Credit: AllThingsDigital)

Her dreams of heading up the World Bank dashed, former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, the architect of one of the worst tech mergers in history, has turned her attention to the U.S. Senate.

After months of speculation, Fiorina on Wednesday officially announced her candidacy. She'll run as a Republican against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Of course to do that, she must first win the Republican primary. Fiorina broke the news in an op-ed in the Orange County Register.

"Admittedly, I have not always been engaged in the electoral process, and I should have been," she wrote. "For many years I felt disconnected from the decisions made in Washington and, to be honest, really didn't think my vote mattered because I didn't have a direct line of sight from my vote to a result. I realize that thinking was wrong. As I grew throughout my career, beginning as a secretary and eventually becoming a CEO, I saw how government impacted business. I learned more as a member of advisory boards at the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA. I now understand, in a very real way, that the decisions made by the Senate impact every family and every business, of any size, in America. This is what motivates me to run for the U.S. Senate. And so today I am announcing my candidacy to serve the people of California as your next U.S. senator. ... Together we can turn things around."

Together we can turn things around? Not if Fiorina's performance at HP is any indication. Before she was forced out of the company by its board of directors, she was so at odds with the uniquely Californian "HP Way" that her corner office could have been powered solely by Bill Hewlett spinning in his grave.

UPDATE: Here's another Fiorina op-ed (PDF) from earlier this year in which she discusses executive pay. Unsurprisingly, she is against President Obama's efforts to restore "common sense" to CEO compensation. And why wouldn't she be? After all she walked away from HP with a $21 million severance package ...

Story Copyright (c) 2009 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.

[bag_of_hammers]

Keep. This. Woman. Away. From. Government.

[dowell100]

Merge California and Nevada??? I don't get it. Is the statement meant to be slander, parody or just bad reporting?

Keep. Cnet. Away. From. Political. Reporting.

[ewsachse]

Keep. dowell100. Away. From. Commenting. About. Anything.

[kaibelf]

Dowell.....
It's obviously making fun of her trigger-happy acquisition of Compaq. Duh.

[Random_Walk]

Oh, c'mon... it'll be fun!

(besides, she can't possibly screw it up any more than the clowns we have in there now).

[darthstupid]

No kidding. She nearly destroyed HP with a massively botched merger with Compaq. With that she was playing with people's investments, now she has the capability of destroying peoples lives. She has absolutely NO idea what she is doing.

[mbenedict]

Actually in hindsight, the Compaq-HP merger was the right thing to do. Carly had exactly the right vision, but didn't anticipate all the difficulties in executing that vision. It took Mark Hurd to get the job done.

For an excellent analysis, read: "Compaq-HP Merger was Right After All According to Stanford Business School Research"

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2007_July_16/ai_n19361794/

So maybe if Carly is going to be in the government it is better that she's in the legislative branch rather than the executive branch.

[HPSurvivor]

God help the people of California and this country if this woman ever gets a seat in state and/or national politics. As a 17 year veteran of HP I've managed to survive first the Carly purges, then the mass (Mark) Hurd migrations. Through the so-called "leadership" of Ms. Fiorina and Mr. Hurd, the company that was once considered the crown jewel of Silicon Valley has been rendered just another soulless, cut throat corporate cubicle farm. Universally despised by even the staunchest conservatives in HP, Fiorina and her her ilk are interested only in padding their own bank accounts and resumes at the expense of whatever work force they're in the process of laying off. She and her kind are the absolute last thing California or the nation needs right now. The tech sector has suffered too many years of MBA's, bean counters and their bottom line, anything-for-marketshare mentality. We need a return to the days when engineering company's were run by engineers who had a keen understanding of *sane* business principles.

[gavin_cutshall]

Mr. Paczkowski, It took me a second to get the humor of your headline (but it is funny). Perhaps you should have named the specific company Ms. Fiorina disastrously merged with. There was more than one merger in her tenure.

[Been_there_Saw_it_before]

The sad part is that HP was a good company while the engineers were in charge. Now it is all about the bankers, wall street, and looking good this quarter. Carly was a banker and could only see as far as the $$$s.

[gerrrg]

@Been_there_Saw_it_before

Carly spent much of her time head of marketing/sales, never a banker. Her biggest failure was a failure of management...inability to foresee the problems of merging with Compaq (which faced its own problem of merger with DEC a decade earlier).

[kgsbca]

Carly wasn't a banker, she was a saleswoman, although if she would have been working on Wall St this past decade, she would have been buying all kinds of CDOs and other toxic debt. I'm surprised that she would run for office in CA, with so many HP employees (and other people in the tech world) who know her as the person who almost destroyed the company. She only looks viable when you consider that Sarah Palin was almost VP. Between her and Whitman running for governor, I'm tempted to register as a republican so I can vote against both of them (I won't get a chance to vote against either in the general election, they're both losers).

The one good thing about her candidacy is that some of the undeserved millions she received from HP will be re-distributed to people, although too much of it to political consultants.

[darkebinary]

@ Been_there_Saw_it_before

Unfortunately this has become true for almost all the tech companies out there. I couldn?t agree more. When a technology company has more accountants, HRs, and sales people than actual technical people this is what happens. It happened to Apple when Jobs was ousted. It?s now happening to Microsoft, Dell, and a whole slew of others.

But then again California really could use some cost cutting. I curious to see her reaction when she realizes people in Government don?t jump on command like her former army of VPs at HP.

[JoeF2]

"But then again California really could use some cost cutting."

She is running for senator, not for governor.

[darkebinary]

@ JoeF2
Senators have a lot to due with how much a state spends. Even though they are federal a lot of those programs also involve state money. Take highways for example. Even though they are federal highways, the state must maintain them, and pitch in for new roads.

[gfsdfge]

Great Headline!!

[Oso_Grande]

She's loca....seriously.

[zenrook]

I didn't see anything about the topic headline acquiring Nevada.

[codewrangler]

It was a joke. It refers to the bad merger she did as the CEO of HP (the Compaq merger).

[rdupuy11]

hey smelvin, I mean zenrook....he was suggesting Fiorina is merger happy and would continue that type of decision making should she join the Senate.

Although such a decision, would not only take the approval of Congress, but of the state legislatures of both California and Nevada, and so on and so forth....so sleep easy.

[ianders1]

What's with this article - CNet is getting into politics now? I have followed CNet since it was a TV show and I'm VERY DISAPPOINTED to see political commentary like this on what has always been such a great resource for technology. Did anyone ever think that maybe this article might offend or turn off readers? Not everyone is a California liberal, you know. And the blatant bait & switch headline is equally unprofessional. I guess All Things D stands for Democrat.

GET BACK TO WRITING ABOUT TECH and let the idiot journalists and bloggers fight about politics.

[baruchzed13]

I guess you don't see the connections between what happens in politics and what happens in the tech world. There is a lot at stake, and people like Fiorina, who use their ill gotten gains to buy (or attempt to buy) political office need to be called out.

Resorting to polarizing partisanship does not help. What's happening in this country is beyond partisanship. In fact, people who still believe in the two party system are deluding themselves. There is one party which pretends to be two so people will think they are choosing when they vote. In fact there is one party, it's the party of greed, of profit over life. It is controlled by corporations who make weapons, who start and maintain wars, who seek to control the food and water supplies on Earth.

You may hide in your materialism for now, but that won't last much longer.

[Zoobie]

Agreed. I must have missed the announcement that CNET had changed format to political editorials.

Stick with tech reviews and stay out of politics. I already hear too much politics in my life, without them invading my tech news.

[stubbyns]

CNet is a joke now ;)

[retnep]

The problem ianders1, is that you think saying that someone has sucked at everything they have touched is political. Call a spade a spade. Just because she has a R in her name doesn't mean she's good...at anything. Who would have thought the ones crying would be saying 'It's 'cuz I'm a republican, isn't it?'

[ewsachse]

You get your undies in a bind just because they ridicule a Republican. Tough luck.

This is just as bad when conservatoids find out that Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam support progressive causes. "OMG! Why do they put their politics into their music? They should not do it (unless they agree with my viewpoint)." Um, just to let you know, it is Bruce and Eddie's music. They can create whatever they want. You do not have to listen to it.

The same goes for C/Net.

[dowell100]

@baruchzed13

I think the whole is to get Boxer out of office. Any low down Silicon Valley skunk would be a step up from Boxer.

[darthstupid]

Tech and politics often overlap. If you can't understand that perhaps you shouldn't participate in a conversation about it.

[jjolsen]

This has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the fact that regardless of political affiliation, Carly Fiorina is incompetent.

[Havoc70]

Personally i cant stand Boxer or her idiocy, but this woman is far worse!

[divisionbyzero]

@ianders1

This blog entry is syndicated. It's from allthingsd. CNet really doesn't have much to do with the content. It's like the AP in the NYTimes.

[Chameleon81]

Why HP Compaq merger was a bad one? Can someone explain?

[lightningrob]

It wasn't a bad merger in the long term, though it was contentious before it happened. If you look at how HP's PC business took off in the ensuing years, it's pretty tough to argue that the Compaq acquisition was "disastrous". Of course, that doesn't prevent Cnet writers from making pronouncements like that.

[kaibelf]

It wasn't disastrous from a money standpoint, but it ruined the corporate culture that used to make people happy to work for HP. Now, it's a totally different animal, with badly-manufactured machines, undeliverable (2-4 month wait-list) printers (!) and many fewer happy employees.

[darthstupid]

Because HP and Compaq were major competitors with each other and serving similar markets it meant there was a lot of overlapping product lines. Fiorina was hellbent on the merger even though it would gut Compaq. Compaq had a lot of brilliant engineers that ditched out of the company after the merger. Compaq employees were treated like redheaded stepchildren. The cultural environments that had evolved over the years in both companies clashed. It took *years* before both companies really ever recovered (some argue internally it still hasn't recovered). Fiorina destroyed the stock valuation for thousands of investors and was ultimately fired for her efforts.

To give you an idea of the situation, imagine if Apple and Microsoft were to merge. The corporate culture would clash. The product lines, while serving similar markets would clash. It would be a bloodbath. That was Fiorina's HP/Compaq merger. And now she plans to run for government. Now do you understand why people are concerned?

[Tim_Olaguna]

Another socially insensitive fat-cat (and in this case business incompetent) trying to buy a political office. I predict she will loose big. Wasting her money (no skin off our nose) while further harming the already badly beaten-up and declining California Republican party. Should be fun to watch.

[MaggieRed]

Yeah this article is very close to the edge of being slanderous.

Being a radical left wing organization component of CBS, CNet is following suit by re-publishing articles of bad political taste in an attempt to represent their opinion as news. This belongs in the Huffington post at best.

John Paczkowski, another loser writer from CNet.

[kgsbca]

Paczkowski writes for AllThingsDigital, which is owned by the radical left wing Wall Street Journal, which is owned by the ultra liberal Rupert Murdoch. at least, he writes for them now. good luck, John with the job search.

[Teja81]

Zinger from kgsbca!

[JoeF2]

@kgsbca
ROFL. Great answer!

[DemonDuck000]

"I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation. ...etc."

Does anyone remember that she was kicked out of HP? Apparently she couldn't run a major corporation either....

[Teja81]

What has she done since she was kicked out of HP?

[mghotbi]

First, she flushed Lucent down the toilet, then she destroyed the culture of innovation at HP. For her troubles, she walked away with over $100 million in compensation.

I hope she spends about $50 million of her own money on (what will certainly be a failed) campaign for the senate.

[Captain Bebops]

Yup, let her run for governor. All you have to do is line up a bunch of laid off HP workers, whose jobs were outsourced, in front of cameras for the opponent's campaign. Californians love to get the rich to run and then spend all their money on the campaign and then lose. Some karmic justice in that.

Personally though I doubt if she'll make it into the finals.

[Teja81]

Oh yes totally forgot how she destroyed Lucent!

[stanorlaski]

Ahh CBS, that explains the consistent anti-capitalist bent on all stories economic or political!

What's with the flippant Marxist "update" at the end of the article? I guarantee Paczkowski makes too much money for what he does, he should contribute half of his salary to the janitor, I 'm sure he deserves it more!

[kgsbca]

see above, AllThingsDigital is published by the Wall Street Journal, the consistently anti-capitalist cheerleader for firms like BofA, Citi, GM - you get the picture.

[dpeters11]

The merger was bad, but was it really that bad? I mean, it wasn't anything like AOL Time Warner.

[taphilo]

She has all the qualifications of a good politician: Promise great things and ignore the problems that the goal will cause - since it happens to others. State that nobody will be impacted and efficiency will result - just ignore the 17,000+ people fired as a result of the merger and the 3+ years it will take to just figure out the org chart. Take two heavily overlapped businesses / products and make them one - each built according to different engineering goals and needs - then saying one size fits all. Like forcing everyone to ride busses since they are overall more efficient even if they do not go where you need to go - and of course your company wins all disagreements as to the route.
At least she has the experience of being fired (oooh, I only got 21 million for my firing! It was traumatic!) and that may help her in showing that she is not afraid of failure to try something good.
Now as for HP, it has since gobbled up a LOT more companies since Compaq and still is getting more, and it IS making more money now that those years have gone past - she was a good one to get the merger done - but NOT the right one to run it afterwards. Kind of like kicking PM Chruchill out of office in England after winning the war. He was good for the war but not good for the peace (and they were quite wrong about that - peace is harder to fight than a war!)

[T_Hoff]

This should be labeled as an editorial or opinion piece, not news. Let's focus on technology, shall we?

[azumaguy]

Could we stick with technology, please? I get enough political BS on every other media outlet in the world.

[puresynergyflo]

Completely agree. What is it with people today pretending to be news journalists but always writing with opinions instead of just stating facts. Give me the facts, d@#$t. All of them. Don't withhold any facts that don't fit the template of your worldview. Just research the situation as objectively as possible from every angle (granted this is easier said than done but should always be the goal) and present it to me on a platter. I'll form my opinion based on that or read opinion pieces on what others think about the facts but stop pretending to be a journalist with a clownish joke in the headline. What is this, your high school newsletter? From all the alphabet channels and newspapers to bloggers, shut your traps in regards to your opinion when you're writing "news" and just give me the facts. I'm about to rip my shirt off, turn out the lights, and throw fists. Somebody's gotta set it straight htis watergate.

[azumaguy]

Gee, I wonder what Jon Gosslin or octomom thinks about Fiorina's bid. SHUT UP CNET THIS IS GARBAGE!

[iptofar]

Boxer... Fiorina...Boxer... Fiorina...Boxer... Fiorina...Boxer... Fiorina...

we're s*#@wed.

[jd_in_sb]

The merger of HP-Compaq turned out quite successful. The author of this article is completely wrong when he says it was one of the worst mergers in history. He is uninformed.

[sevort]

Huh? Compaq line from HP is losing money, they have to compete with HP's own Pavilion line. I will not be surprised if Compaq brand will be gone from HP lineup in a year.

What a hit piece. I can think of more disastrous mergers than HP/Compaq. Are they not the number one PC manufacturer because of her? I don't know enough about the woman but geez come on. What a shill for Obama this leftwing writer. Keep Obama out of the private sector and his CEO compensation b.s. , that commie freak.