Fiorina also pursued leaks at HP

(continued from previous page)

Sonsini's report also described the board as "dysfunctional."

"Some board members' behavior was amateurish and immature," she wrote. "Some didn't do their homework. Some had fixed opinions on certain topics and no opinion at all on others. Some members were bored and distracted during important agenda items like leadership development or corporate social responsibility."

Fiorina asserts that when the HP board began to turn against her leadership, she was blindsided.

"I was mystified by the board's recent behavior," she wrote. "I was suspicious of Jay's heated denial when the leak first occurred and then his complete silence on our last call."

The incident that would help lead to her firing was a visit paid to her by three HP directors--Richard A. Hackborn, Dunn and Keyworth--two days before a board meeting in January 2005.

The three told her that they spoke on behalf of the entire board. They directed her to execute a far-reaching reorganization to convince Wall Street analysts that the company was moving to respond to inadequate financial growth and a lagging stock price.

Fiorina said that at the meeting, she believed that she was having a discussion with the board members and that they could not unilaterally order her to take the actions they were demanding.

She wrote that she resisted their orders and argued that the company should continue with an existing 2005 strategic plan.

She described an especially intense and angry confrontation with Keyworth, who pressed her on immediately renominating Perkins to the board.

Earlier in the book, Fiorina writes about other conflicts with Keyworth. She describes how he proposed at times that HP acquire a range of companies, including Advanced Micro Devices, Apple Computer, TiVo and Veritas, and his impatience with her when she disagreed with his logic.

She uses a portion of the book to defend her strategy and management in her five and a half years at HP, making clear that she felt its subsequent resurgence had stemmed from changes on her watch.

She also notes that in 2005, after her departure, the American economy recovered, and the company went on to deliver more than 20 percent growth in earnings per share.

She concludes her memoir by writing that 2005 was the payoff year she "had been expecting."

"HP performed magnificently and delivered the plan," she said, and "the company's 2005 results finally demonstrated that HP had indeed been transformed."

She added a personal note: "Life isn't always fair, and I was playing in the big leagues. Yet I realized I had no regrets."

Fiorina describes being asked to leave what would be a final February meeting in Chicago while board members discussed her fate. She reveals particular bitterness about her firing.

The book's opening paragraph states bluntly, "In the end, the board did not have the courage to face me. They did not thank me, and they did not say goodbye. They did not explain their decision or their reasoning. They did not seek my opinion or my involvement in any aspect of the transition."

After being asked to wait for three hours, none of the board members remained in the room when she returned to it, she wrote. She was greeted by Dunn, the new board chairman and the head of the board's governance committee, who asked her to announce publicly that the decision to step down had been her own. Fiorina wrote that she refused.

Entire contents, Copyright © 2009 The New York Times. All rights reserved.

Entire contents, Copyright © 2009 The New York Times. All rights reserved.

[stopspin]

"find some adults"

Please...H-P has accumulated this pathetic group of officers,
lawyers, directors, "non-executive" directors, "ethics" personnel,
and investigator/employees...
break it up, and sell the parts to some adults with REAL business
backgrounds and qualifications...instead of leaving it with these
children who only play at being adults.

[CancerMan2]

I'd Be Bitter Too

I'd be bitter too if I only received $42 million in cash, stock, and other benefits as severance as Carly did. Heck, $42 mill doesn't go very far these days, what with the high cost of housing, healthcare, and such. I mean, you can't even get decent priced Guatemalan maids anymore.

[mbjr]

ok excuse me a sec...

...while I laugh my head off...

[tania3000]

This, too, got leaked ...

... using Google Earth:

Articles with pictures:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/19/huangyangtan_mystery/
http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/the-riddle-of-chinas-area-51/2006/08/14/1155407679963.html

Google Earth forum post:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/484568

That's the place in the middle of the desert where the Chinese Army has constructed a scale-model replica of the entire region of Aksai Chin (occupied by China since the 1962 war with India). At 1:500, it's still 700 by 900 meters big ( = several football fields). Next to it is a base with dozens of troop transporters seen coming and going. The duplicate shows everything: rivers, lakes, roads and snow-capped mountains. It's basically a landscape within a landscape.

The problem is that nobody has been able to figure out the function of this thing. The world's biggest miniature golf course, perhaps? China's own Area 51? That's why it's the subject of so much discussion in the blogosphere. The discoverer even had to set up his own blog: foundinchina.blogspot.com

Any ideas?