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Carly's Way (Hungarian Immigrant Engineer Describes HP Under Carly)
MIT Technology Review ^ | 4 March 2005 | Michelle Delio

Posted on 03/06/2005 7:51:17 AM PST by HolgerDansk

I snuck out of Hungary in 1973, one week after I was told that if I ever wanted to advance as an engineer, I would have to join the Communist Party.

Being a good party member was far more important than your skill level, and so my boss was a man who had been a pig farmer. After decades spent raising hogs, he suddenly was supervising dozens of machinists, most of whom had engineering degrees and had built bridges and buildings until we were reassigned to "practical and useful" work -- making parts for factory machines.

Working for Carly Fiorina reminded me of my days working for that farmer. I remember the first time she walked into the Hewlett-Packard labs. She said that our new company slogan was "Invent." Then she told us that the technology industry would never again be as exciting and profitable as it was in the '90s. That we'd all need to grow up now and face that fact. [snip]

(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: carly; engineers; hp; michelledelio; technology; technologyreview
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To: HolgerDansk

bttttt


41 posted on 03/06/2005 9:09:04 AM PST by dennisw (Seeing as how this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world .........)
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To: Enterprise; HolgerDansk
"Carly was a marketing person put in change of engineers, a person who cared nothing about the art and beauty of technology."

A marketing / management type, from the school of thought that managenment is management, and it's not really necessary for one to know intimately the business or technology one is managing. Carly was a huge departure from Messrs Hewlett and Packard, two of the original garage-guys, forerunners to Jobs and Gates.

42 posted on 03/06/2005 9:11:29 AM PST by Rummyfan
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To: HolgerDansk

Ah, DEC. The only computer I ever truly loved was a VAX. Those were the days . . . (sigh)

;)


43 posted on 03/06/2005 9:12:35 AM PST by walden
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To: rahbert

Unlikely since Carly is a Republican..

So is Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and John Mccain. What does being Republican mean anymore?


44 posted on 03/06/2005 9:14:12 AM PST by cp124 (The Great Wall Mart)
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To: Rummyfan

Bill Gates recently said that American High Schools are obsolete. I think it goes higher than that. With people like Fiorina ruining companies, business will start thinking that "higher" education is also obsolete.


45 posted on 03/06/2005 9:16:20 AM PST by Enterprise (President Bush thought Wead was a friend. Turns out he was just a big fat tape worm.)
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To: cloud8
"The B-school clown to whom our company was entrusted boasted, boasted that he hadn't written any code in 10 years, and that he wasn't about to learn about ours."

Perfect illustration of a bad management attitude!

Right now, in terms of the management - engineer employer relationship, its a buyers market, and many management types are taking advantage of it.

I know of one manufacturing engineer for a major Fortune 500 company who was advised...no make that ordered...to train or 'instruct' their Chinese counterpart in everything they had accumulated over their career in knowledge, experience, production tuning techniques, personal tricks of the trade...everything that made them an exceptional performer....just give it away.

The manager directed the employee in this with a cavalier attitude that spoke volumes.
46 posted on 03/06/2005 9:40:45 AM PST by Dat Mon (will work for clever tagline)
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To: Dat Mon
All told...large American leading edge tech companies are increasingly migrating high tech design facilities to Ireland, Scotland, India, Israel...as well as the ubiquitous China.

And yet all the really cool stuff still seems to come from this country , doesn't it?

The Soviet Union produced many more highly skilled engineers, and PhDs per capita than America, yet not one significant techological advance came from them. Why?

America's strength is our creativity and dynamism. It's not about who manufactures the microchips anymore. It's about who makes those microchips do new and interesting things.

None of America's apparent competitors can even come close to us in the rate of new ideas. That's something that's difficult to quantify in things like the number of engineering students, etc.

Let the Chinas and Taiwans mass produce the small electronics; we don't need to. Their cultures are just not conducive to coming up with ideas like Google, Ebay, Dell, Microsoft, Walmart, Yahoo, etc.

As long as America has the lions share of new ideas, our economy will still be on top.

47 posted on 03/06/2005 9:43:05 AM PST by mikenola
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To: mikenola
"And yet all the really cool stuff still seems to come from this country , doesn't it?"

Read the quote you referenced from my post, and juxtapose it with your statement above.

I'm afraid you're missing the point.

I'm referring to American companies who are increasingly doing their high tech design overseas using foreign engineers, using foreign based subsidiaries.

Do some research on Ireland, and the high tech sector.
48 posted on 03/06/2005 9:50:56 AM PST by Dat Mon (will work for clever tagline)
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To: HolgerDansk
Agreed. I do have to comment that many of these ideas came from German scientists brought to the US after WWII. I was looking at some of the captured German designs for aircraft, and we are still using them in the most recent designs. I don't think it's anything but Divine Intervention that made Hitler pull so many military tactical blunders.

MBAs and lawyers will destroy this country. Corporate CEOs have devasted many companies. Gates, Jobs, and the Waltons are some of the few people running corporations that care about the long-term success of the company. Many CEOs run from company to company, generating short-term gains while gutting the underlying structure that made the company successful. I don't think Carly could have wrecked HP more effectively if she had been on a search and destroy mission. However, she spouts the new world socialist MBA BS that the financial press loves, and poses well with her arms crossed while standing in front of tech looking devices. In short, she's the perfect empty skirt for a non-thinking press.

49 posted on 03/06/2005 9:54:48 AM PST by Richard Kimball (It was a joke. You know, humor. Like the funny kind. Only different.)
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Comment #50 Removed by Moderator

To: Lessismore
Actually, the Clinton Adminstration expanded government technology research funding. It started the Advanced Technoloby Program, it changed the name of "Defense Advanced Research Programs Administration" to "Advanced Research Projects Administration" and encouraged more industrial research, and it promoted Cooperative Research and Development Agreements for joint research between government and industrial labs.

Well, I worked for a number of years in a DARPA/ARPA/WhateverFedGrantYouCanGet funded tech company. I can tell you right now that there is a whole cottage industry of companies that exist only to gobble up these grants, and NEVER endeavor to produce actual salable product.

They don't just care less if the product is a success in the marketplace or not, they don't want to take the effort and risk of selling and supporting the technology. It would distract them from writing another grant proposal - which to them is a guaranteed source of income.

Do they care that they promised the government that the goal was to jump start a commercial technology market for the betterment of the country? Heck no!

Does the government care that these companies never fulfill their promise to start a commercial company based around the technology they're underwriting? Heck No! It isn't their hard earned money - why should they care!!!

As you might tell, I'm rather bitter about the whole experience. There was a lot of mental firepower - my own included - being drawn to these sham government contract companies. The country would have been better served if these people went to VC or a bank or their family for funding - the need to pay investors back would have driven them to actually produce usable product.

51 posted on 03/06/2005 10:06:48 AM PST by Yossarian (Remember: NOT ALL HEART ATTACKS HAVE TRADITIONAL SYMPTOMS)
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To: HolgerDansk
There's nothing that makes you say, 'Wow." Ten years ago I was seeing something interesting every month, but now we're touting bloated software and cute case designs as innovation.

The damage to HP and the U.S. technology industry at large may already be irreversible. If we start investing today and let our engineers play we might have something exciting to show people in 2010. That's a long time to wait for the next big wow.

This is true in all industries. Some of the best basic research that is occurring is the "off the books" stuff that the engineers do on their own or hide within other projects. If you can't "prove" a short return-on-investment, management doesn't want to hear about it.

52 posted on 03/06/2005 10:07:22 AM PST by SC Swamp Fox (Aim small, miss small.)
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To: HolgerDansk

Probably one of the best threads I've seen posted on this forum - and that is saying a lot.


53 posted on 03/06/2005 10:13:54 AM PST by Last Dakotan
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To: HolgerDansk

So where do companies like H.P., Canon, and Epson come up with the rocket scientists that think up the order numbers for their ink and toner cartridges? Only an engineer could come up with something so confusing.

For example you want a Canon ink cartridge for your BJC-2100 ink jet printer. The cartridge says BCI-21, but the order number is CNM-0945A003, unless you want a twin pack which is CNM-F470731TPK. God help you if you are trying to oder a L-50 toner cartridge, the number is CNM-6812A001AA.

I sell these things for a living and I really feel for my customers, they constantly need my help. The first company that can come up with simple order numbers will gain huge customer loyalty. The closest so far is Brother.


54 posted on 03/06/2005 10:14:20 AM PST by Trteamer ( (Eat Meat, Wear Fur, Own Guns, FReep Leftists, Drive an SUV, Drill A.N.W.R., Drill the Gulf, Vote)
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To: mikenola

The masses need to work somewhere other than Wal-Mart, McDonalds ot the state/federal government.

There are a lot of companies that had great ideas that failed due to lack of capital.


55 posted on 03/06/2005 10:26:21 AM PST by cp124 (The Great Wall Mart)
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To: Richard Kimball

"many of these ideas came from German scientists brought to the US after WWII. I was looking at some of the captured German designs for aircraft, and we are still using them in the most recent designs"

We won the space race because our German scientists were better than the Soviets German scientists.....


56 posted on 03/06/2005 10:31:44 AM PST by RFEngineer
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To: 12 Gauge Mossberg
Where are the risk-takers, the innovators, the can-doers?

In China and India most likely.

57 posted on 03/06/2005 10:40:23 AM PST by Euro-American Scum (A poverty-stricken middle class must be a disarmed middle class)
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

Hahahaha, screw snazzy, I want the damn thing to work! The only problem I've had with an eMachine is my kids going to sites loaded with worms and virii. Of course that will kill any computer...

I've heard bad things about other computer mfgs. So if they're all junk, why not go for the most reasonably priced junk.


58 posted on 03/06/2005 10:44:58 AM PST by TheSpottedOwl
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To: HolgerDansk

Great post.


59 posted on 03/06/2005 10:48:40 AM PST by Lazamataz (Proudly Posting Without Reading the Article Since 1999!)
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To: Doohickey

"This article is so true of many companies, no matter what industry they're in..."

Agreed. But it is important to note that while HP is, for all intents and purposes, now dead, it doesn't mean technology innovation is dead.

Carly came to HP and lacking any really good ideas, she decided to coast......A company, especially a technology company, can have a few really good quarters of financial performance if one cuts things like research, maintenance, and other things that can be deferred.

Carly learned this from AT&T, carried it to Lucent, and HP....a "Me First" attitude that was not in the best interests of her company or her stockholders.

That said, like everything else, it takes money to develop stuff and sometimes you have more money for innovation than at other times. A LOT of technology companies were hurting in the 2000-2003 timeframe....those that survived cut everything, just to keep the lights on - and their product lines suffer down the road because of it - and it is apparent now in some cases.

Do not mistake the death of the old stalwarts of technology and innovation with the death of technology itself. America is still the leader.


60 posted on 03/06/2005 10:53:11 AM PST by RFEngineer
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