Posted on 11/17/2011 7:02:11 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In late September, when Steve Jobs was a fortnight from his long night, HP, whose co-founder Bill Hewlett had once chatted with and inspired the high-schooler Jobs, named Meg Whitman as its latest CEO. Meg Whitman has many positive and unappreciated qualities, but no one has ever compared her to Steve Jobs. He was the West Coast acid-dropping dropout and seeker; she was the East Coast Ivy Leaguer who kept her nose clean. Her rise up the corporate ladder to eBay was as predictable as any Harvard Business School grad’s can be: Disney, Procter and Gamble, Bain Capital. Even her husband’s name, Griffith Harsh IV, has an East Coast ring to it.
But eBay was Whitman’s game breaker. She became CEO in 1998, when eBay had 30 employees and about $4 million in sales. Her tenure lasted almost ten years and oversaw eBay’s growth to $8 billion and 15,000. Her genius stroke was the PayPal acquisition in 2004. Whitman’s first six years as eBay’s CEO were an unbridled success. Her grades for the next four years are mixed, and include the 2005 acquisition of Skype for $4.1 billion. The eBay immune system never welcomed Skype and coughed it up in 2009 for $2.75 billion. During this time, eBay’s growth flattened. The opportunity to a be a competitor of Amazon’s or Facebook’s was also missed.
As a slap to Whitman for her latter days at eBay – and perhaps for her expensive, lackluster and unsuccessful 2010 governor’s race against Jerry Brown – HP’s stock dropped 3.5% the day after the Whitman appointment.
I have no way to prove this, but I think Whitman was also punished for being the opposite of Steve Jobs at a time when the dying Jobs was about to enter Silicon Valley sainthood.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I don’t think she will succeed. HP was thoroughly ruined by the sales bimbo that thought that selling printer ink would best represent the name HP, and that the builder of the finest instrumentation in the world should relinquish the name.
HP made its reputation on top line engineering. A business major won’t hack it...after all, we science types call the “flunkouts” - business majors.
RE: HP was thoroughly ruined by the sales bimbo that thought that selling printer ink would best represent the name HP, and that the builder of the finest instrumentation in the world should relinquish the name.
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That company still exists — Its name is AGILENT and it is listed in the NY Stock Exchange.
One thing it could do, is move out of Kalipornia like all of the other success stories seem to be doing. :p
RE: One thing it could do, is move out of Kalipornia like all of the other success stories seem to be doing. :p
Easier said than done. HP has been in Cali for the longest time ( since its beginning before the second world war ) and most of its employees ( those with expertise ) have their roots in the state.
Leaving CA will be a major upheaval.
If they plan to, they might have to do it SLOWLY.
I take it you have never owned an HP laptop.
I despise HP and it goes double for their little “projects”.
It’ll take a long time to repair the damage Carly Fiorina did.
I’ve fixed a few and I tell people who want advice to avoid HP.
Nutmeg Whitman is a romney protoge/stooge who got the beat down that 0bama would give Slick Willard in the general.
HP is a morass of paper pushers. Not enough donkeys pulling the cart.
If she doesn’t tackle that problem, they will collapse on themselves.
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