>>http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/carly-fiorina-ceo-jeffrey-sonnenfeld-2016-213163
>>
>>So far, we've had you betcha Sarah, machiavel Hillary, and mendacious Carly.
>>Better than lots of guys, for sure.
>>But hey, gals, can't you do better?
>
>I think Fiorina is far more capable than the others.
>
>The standard social media consensus is that Fiorina failed at HP. Social media is mistake...in the same way they are mistaken that Fiorina completely fabricated the PP video claim.
>
> Yes, stock price and other indicators took a big nose dive. But those stabilized and rebounded after Mark Hurd took over, and Hurd acknowledged he was executing a similar plan to what Fiorina was laying out. Fiorina ultimately made some critical mistakes and Hurd corrected them....but you can make the argument that Hurd was able to adjust only because Fiorina pushed the merger to begin with. So in that sense, you have to look at the conditions of other companies at the time as well, and how much Fiorina was trying to play the role of pioneer of sorts. I believe I read somewhere that some corporate execs with knowledge of the entire history now believe that Fiorina deserves better than the criticism she's receiving. (I'll acknowledge the Lucent story is a different story)
>
>These two articles paint a much clearer (and certainly less partial) picture than Sonnefeld's piece... (especially the 2nd one)
>
>http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-18/carly-fiorina-s-hewlett-packard-record-in-one-chart
>https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/compaq-hp-ultimately-urge-merge-was-right

My view of Carly is admittedly a distorted one. I made a rare venture into the equities market (the only one in decades) and bought some HP stock after I saw her, as a new CEO, make one of the most erudite, inspiring and persuasive speeches I'd ever seen from a CEO.
It was a costly venture.

As a shareholder I had more than a passing interest in HP and I followed her rise and fall closely.
By the time the Compaq deal came along it was clear to anyone in the business that PC's were becoming a commodity whose prices and margins could only go in one direction - down- and that has in fact come to pass.
I really soured on her though, when I saw the tactics she used to get the deal approved by the shareholders.
The Hewlett and Packard family members, who controlled large blocks of stock, were dead set against it as were many of the board members.
Carly gave out large investment banking deals to firms like DeutscheBank who controlled large blocks of stock held in trust. Those investment banks cast the deciding votes that gave her the narrow margin she finally got to do the deal.
No surprise that investment banks are sleazy, but I expected more from Carly.