Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0

Carly Fiorina’s Senate candidacy is further proof that the Mayans might have known a thing or two about the end of the world after all. She is supremely unqualified by mind, temperment and skills. Which means she could win the primary.

One of the Stiftung’s most cherished friends was also a long time friend of David Packard of Hewlett-Packard fame. Our friend’s brilliant in every sense of the word. His devotion to David Packard and family complete. Back in the mid-late 1990s HP realized it needed a new CEO. Our friend decided that Carly Fiorina was exactly what HP needed. At Lucent she ran up great numbers and helped steer the company for its spin off. That your pet chinchilla could have done it? Because Ebbers et al. made up fake numbers for the tech bubble? Everyone was drinking the kool aid. She gets a pass. Our friend really pulled out all the stops to recruit her to HP and then smooth her introduction with the HP power structure. HP needed someone ‘digital’. After all, her predecessor’s ‘big idea’ to jump start HP was to buy Kodak. Plus, let’s be candid – in an industry with geeky white guys, she was relatively smokin’ hot.

We some years later joined our friend and Carly for a weekend. Things began to change by then. She was still a rock star. The Stiftung cops to being smitten by her radiant charisma. She still spouted all the empty Gilderisms of the era (some which we helped write and promote). We remember this time sadly. She came across as a beautiful Faberge egg left outside unaware a rain storm approached. Around this time the smartest of the smart first quietly murmured a new phrase – ‘dot bomb.’ Carly’s flawless Gilder-esque blandishments came across as shockingly out of date. A 22 minute guitar solo during the Summer of Punk. She was oblivious to the growing demand for actual P/L and execution. Our friend was still the almost proud paternal figure escorting her. But when he thought no one was looking, we sensed his unease.

We later learned from our friend this unease first grew among the other senior-most HP decision-makers*. Where was both planning and execution? Then unease blossomed into full scale concern for HP as a business enterprise. Why? It wasn’t about the brutal fight over the Compaq acquisition. Our friend and others realized they created a media addict. She, like John Sculley at Apple a decade earlier, lived for media placement. Carly was rarely at Palo Alto. Davos? Sure. In the office running the company? Oops. When the tech fantasy world collapsed back to earth, HP needed someone sitting in the CEO’s office making strategic plans, implementing decisions and focused on sustained follow-up. What every CEO does. Carly constitutionally was unable — and unwilling — to do that. She refused to do the boring day-to-day detail work. After serious remonstrations, warnings, and then ultimately arguments, HP decision makers realized she in effect told them off. She didn’t have to answer to them because she was a star. HP decision makers also realized it wouldn’t matter. She literally could not function as an executive. So HP fired her.

Carly’s version is naturally different. In such tension-filled circumstances one should accept that Rashomon happens. Carly’s memoirs nonetheless are borderline libelous in maligning her opponents’ manhood, character and ethics. Carly’s tale? It’s a little bit true, a little bit blue and alot of bullshit. She then as now has her own account with a PR firm for burnishing inconvenient truths. Despite her retroactive claims, gender had nothing to do with her dismissal. It probably worked to her advantage. What Carly et al. can’t dissemble about is how her replacement Mark Hurd leads HP from success to success. He is the consummate manager: focused, communicating, engaged. Everything Carly could never be.

Boxer’s Senate seat is at this remove safe. At least that’s what Morning Joe says. But California Republicans and the voting public should give Carly one thing – she went rogue long before it was tea-bagger cool.

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* “Decision-makers” refers to CXO-level and above. The Stiftung also dealt with various VPs, spent time at HP Labs, worked with numerous managing directors, including those who later crossed legal lines, etc.

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