Failed Symbol of a Failed Decade

Won't listen. Won't learn. Won't take responsibility.

I am not writing about George W. Bush.  I'm writing about Carly Fiorina.

Fiorina has written a horrible, self-congratulatory, non-revelatory book called Tough Choices that could have come from any Bush Administration flack.

I am not talking here about her politics, but she certainly has the style down.

Naturally she gave an interview about it to Forbes, the "great man" book of business (no one under the Cxx title means squat). Part of it is linked to here, from AlwaysOn.

This is a smarmy, shallow, stupid woman. She still thinks, even today, that the problem H-P faced was that its myth of invention no longer fit the time, and that the opposition she faced was based on her being from outside, or being female, or being a non-engineer.

What a crock!

Fiorina joined a tech company which, while troubled, still had enormous assets and inventiveness. She treated it like a steel outfit. She assumed she was in a consolidating industry, and that merging with a failing competitor -- Compaq -- would solve its problems through the miracle of oligopoly.

Bullshit.

Fiorina applied JP Morgan policies to a Steve Jobs problem.

It was Fiorina who brought Patricia Dunn into H-P. It was Carly Fiorina who looted that company, who destroyed the shareholders' value, and who is ultimately responsible for what has happened since.

No one should listen to a damned word she says. Any more than they should listen to those who advocated our failed policies in Iraq.

Yet the idiots at Forbes listen. Yet the book publishers listen. Yet we're supposed to listen.

Until we refuse to listen, we won't make progress anywhere.

Yes, I take it personally when great companies are destroyed by egomaniac incompetents. I take it personally when, after these companies fall, the pilots still don't think they did anything wrong.

Heckuva job, Carly