Fiorina: They resented me for change
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina fired back at her former employer in response to questions following a speech at the MIT Sloan School of Management on Wednesday.
In front of a standing-room-only audience, Fiorina, who is an alumna of the Sloan Fellows Program, was repeatedly asked about her experience at HP.
"I was, in a way that I did not understand at the time, I was the personification of a change they knew was necessary but feared. And they grew to resent me for that," said Fiorina. "I don't think I failed. I do think I was fired," she said.
While Fiorina would not comment directly on the behavior of HP's board and the scandal involving pretexting, she did offer her opinion on boardroom ethics.
"It's disgusting when you see things coming out of the boardroom when they thought no one was looking. Abusive, unethical people do well in business because they get results. If you want to end that, you have to be prepared to fire an executive for something that you would fire an employee for," she said.
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
