Carly's Way (Hungarian Immigrant Engineer Describes HP Under Carly)

MIT Technology Review ^ | 4 March 2005 | Michelle Delio

[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]

[Mr Ramsbotham]

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

The best thing you can do is build one, which is not really that difficult. By selecting the components yourself, you can be assured that you're getting first-rate. Your initial outlay will be slightly more than you'd pay for one of the "junk" systems, but you'll be getting something that's far more upgradeable and reliable. You might actually start liking your computer!

[CTOCS]

I see you have a New Hampshire tag. You weren't by any chance at the DEC facility outside Marlboro, Mass. were you?

I was at Stratus Computer/Ascend Communications/Lucent Technologies (all mergers) when Fiorina was running Bell Labs.

She was universally despised there as well...

[Lessismore]

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.

I agree that what you say is true, especially with respect to companies that derive most of their research dollars from government contracts. But in the early ninties, there was an effort to get more of an interaction between ARPA and the research labs of mainstream industrial and service companies. Now I think all the funding goes to military tech companies and beltway bandits.

[NewHampshireDuo]

I see you have a New Hampshire tag. You weren't by any chance at the DEC facility outside Marlboro, Mass. were you?

Hudson for most of the time (what's now the Intel facility).

[TheSpottedOwl]

I thought about building my own system years ago, but I've been tied up with consuming personal obligations. If you're tech ignorant, the last thing you want to do, is take on a task like that under difficult circumstances.

It is the way to go, though. Is it possible to put together a laptop by yourself? A laptop would be better for me, for many reasons.

[Nick Danger]

I feel very badly about the loss of Hewlett-Packard. The thing that has its name now isn't at all the same company.

Hewlett-Packard was where you went when you wanted the best, and were willing to pay for it. I remember buying HP's first DVD writer, the 100i. At the time, the only other company out there with one was Sony. I picked the HP over the Sony because I knew this was bleeding-edge stuff, and I wanted it to work.

The software installation was an abomination. I watched it sputter and die six different ways. I thought, "This isn't ready for release. This isn't like Hewlett-Packard. They don't do stuff like this." I expected crap installs like this from Creative Labs, not HP.

I learned to live with the damned thing, but it never did work right. In trying to make it work, I stumbled on a forum where IT managers were ripping HP a new one over this device, and how bad it was. So I knew it wasn't just me. One guy was threatening to take his 200-server-a-year business to IBM if HP didn't take these things back and give him something that worked.

That was the first product I'd ever gotten from HP — and I've had plenty, going back to test equipment days — that wasn't outstanding. I was shocked by it.

I've bought a few more things from them since, but what I've learned is that they're not HP anymore. They're just another run-of-the-mill supplier. Their stuff is cheaper now, but it isn't special. It isn't HP. It's just stuff.

I don't think a company can get that "specialness" back once they've lost it. Carly Fiorina wrecked that company. It's too bad, because having somebody around who always gets it right, even if it's expensive, is a good thing. Sometimes you need right, not cheap.

[SteveH]

It was very feminized.

Much of this occurred before Carly was hired.

[Perhaps they should have moved the corporate HQ to Boise instead...]

[FreedomPoster]

>>we used to have so many VAXes and Micro VAXes.... where are they all now?

Sitting on people's desks, in the form of economical powerful Wintel PCs.

The handwriting was on the wall for DEC, when they released a PC without a diskette formatting progeam, so they could try to make money on selling you pre-formatted floppy diskettes. Yes, I'm talking about the unlamented DEC Rainbow.

The market went to other companies who provided more bang for the buck, and didn't try to screw the customer.

[RFEngineer]

"The thing that has its name now isn't at all the same company"

So true. I have ended up with (some my fault, some not) several HP products over the past few years.....at best they've been mediocre.

The last time I've been had by HP is the iPAQ I ended up with......I later bought a different PDA for my wife (a Dell) that puts the HP to shame....

The HP I knew would be utterly humiliated to put out the crap that they all too eagerly sell these days.

[HolgerDansk]

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.

Research is a pipeline, and there are three distinct stages in the pipe:

1. Pure Science (eg, chemists and physicists)
2. Applied Science (aka principles and practices)
3. Engineering Research (the above in the Real World).

Each stage in the pipeline is heavily dependant on the previous stages, either for results, or support. D/ARPA has an excellent track record at stage #2(agreed not so good at #3), where it has done most of its work. Usually, stage #3 is the province of venture capitalists, since the technology risk is low to none. VCs, however, do not fund stages #1 or #2, because the lack the expertise to judge the technology risks. So, somebody has to do it, or there will be no raw material for stage #3. Which is about where we are now.

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

No. You need to get out more.

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

They (now Russia) the world leader right now in supercapacitors, which are already replacing batteries for large industrial applications, including hybrid vehicles. The Russians have great mathematicians and engineers -- and now that the government is no longer standing on their throats, they're innovating beautifully.

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.

All past tense. What made that creativity and dynamism possible was a full research pipeline. The first two stages of the pipeline are now nearly empty from years of lack of investment.

Let the Chinas and Taiwans mass produce the small electronics; we don't need to.

I guess we don't need jobs for Joe Average who only finished high school then, correct? A healthy economy needs jobs for all skill levels, not just the top.

Their cultures are just not conducive to coming up with ideas like Google, Ebay, Dell, Microsoft, Walmart, Yahoo, etc.

Every single company on your list is the product of research that happened during the Reagan research boom years of the 1980s. None of them do basic science, only Microsoft does applied research (and then only a small amount), and that's it. You're looking at the past.

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

This is true, but so is the converse: If we do not innovate, we're sunk. And that's what's been happening since 2001. What passes for "innovation" these days is pitiful in comparison to the technical innovation in the 1980s and 1990s, which was in turn fed by a 3-5 year long pipeline of basic, applied and engineering research. Even if we start funding things today, it will be at least a half decade before US technology innovation will be strong enough to expand the US economy again. And, to wrap it back to the thread, the current generation of non-investing CEOs are directly to blame.

[HolgerDansk]

It is the way to go, though. Is it possible to put together a laptop by yourself?

Not exactly, but: you can find low power consumption, small form factor PCs for about $500 these days. Couple that to a lightweight, portable LCD display (NEC makes a good product) and you have something that's almost as portable.

[HolgerDansk]

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

...until the pipeline runs dry. Ironically, the companies you've named -- AT&T, HP, DEC -- heavily funded basic science and applied research until the 1990s. They had the majority of well-cited publications in the computing field. All three then scuttled their research labs, thus depriving the US economy of the bulk of early-stage research. And, not suprisingly, in less than a decade, two of the three are now gone after decades of contributing to the US economy, and HP may not be far behind.

Since you advertise yourself as an RF Engineer, maybe you're old enough to remember the Dark Times in radioscience and RFE, through the 1970s and 1980s until the mobile phone boom revitalized the industry (and caused us to call back emeritus faculty members). No research bucks, no technology Buck Rogers.

[RFEngineer]

"Since you advertise yourself as an RF Engineer, maybe you're old enough to remember the Dark Times in radioscience and RFE, through the 1970s and 1980s until the mobile phone boom revitalized the industry (and caused us to call back emeritus faculty members). No research bucks, no technology Buck Rogers."

Well, I wasn't quite old enough to remember the job market in the 70's, the mobile phone boom did revitalize RFE in the commercial sector, you are quite correct.

Centrally directed technology development and budgets just aren't possible anymore. I don't think that's necessarily bad.

Here is what I think happened to the subject companies:

AT&T is all but dead because they couldn't adapt beyond their monopoly past.....and their managers almost universally have failed when they left AT&T.

HP lost their reputation for excellence because they jumped into mass-market consumer products where price is the only factor

DEC - didn't adapt to open standards for software and hardware.

These are examples of failed companies, not failed research strategies......sure they USED to do lots of research but they blew it on the business side first. Technology research may have helped them pull out of the death spiral they fell into, but who knows?

What's replacing it? well, information is more accessible than ever, collaboration doesn't require large facilities with thousands of dedicated research staff.....part of the problem is that it's just harder to measure now.

[SteveH]

HP lost their reputation for excellence because they jumped into mass-market consumer products where price is the only factor

HP's problems started considerably before that, IMO. They put the "Microwave Mafia" in charge of the company, over time inexhorably failed to understand the market, and eventually ran the computer divisions into the ground. Carly was the tail end of a long trend.

[mikenola]

All past tense. What made that creativity and dynamism possible was a full research pipeline. The first two stages of the pipeline are now nearly empty from years of lack of investment.

I suppose you and I have different frames of reference. I agree supercapacitors are important, but they are low on the totem pole considering the cutting edge info managment Google, Ebay and Amazon are doing. I don't mean to sound pompous but that's the stuff that's going to alter people's daily lives (with the possible help of supercapacitors of course!)

I suppose there's a tangential argument to be made that Google began from the research dept. at Stanford, but in my view the impetus behind their innovation was a couple of smart kids acting independently with a great idea (with help from Sand Hill Rd. of course). Ebay, Amazon and Yahoo don't have any connection with govt or corporate R&D that i know about.

I guess that was the point I was trying to make: don't assume all good ideas have to come from the R&D labs. Google and Yahoo are coming up with cutting-edge stuff everyday (not past tense) , and they do it by virtue of their own means.

[sam_paine]

Carly did not help the prospects for any creative engineers at HP....but Michael Dell is not know for spending HIS company's profits on research, either.

He makes others do ALL of his RnD. Such as Intel. I'm no fan of Carly, but NOBODY in the "mature" PC biz is allowed BY THE MARKET to spend much if anything on basic research.

[sam_paine]

[Asian] cultures are just not conducive to coming up with ideas like Google, Ebay, Dell, Microsoft, Walmart, Yahoo, etc.

EXACTLY CORRECT. There really is a critical difference regarding innovation. American engineers have the arrogance to say, "I know better." Whether he does or not, the market decides.

But Taiwanese/Chinese etc merely do the best they can to reduce the cost of a given paradigm. Quanta or Inventec can make a cheaper laptop, but they would never come up with the concept of an iPaq or iPod.

It simply is not done for an asian engineer to call a meeting to introduce his new greatest idea. It would be insulting to his manager and/or coworkers. It's just not done.

Japan is a totally different culture, and while less so, they can be tentative about radical innovation too.

[IDontLikeToPayTaxes]

Three MALE co-workers of mine who left HP had very negative things to say about Carly's leadership, or alleged leadership and mgmt style.

It was all very touchy feely. They *really* cared. It was very feminized.

Decisions were less important than communication and collaboration.

Efforts and intentions were rewarded more than outcomes and results.

It was also at the same time very Machiavellian (full of back-stabbing and comments made about you after the meeting was over.)

... AND they perceived it was a great place to be an ambitious female, not male.

Every company I've ever worked for has been like that, especially my current employer. I should have never gotten out of the Army.

[sam_paine]

German scientists were better than the Soviets German scientists.....

Uh. Wright, Curtiss, Martin, Douglas, Loughead, Boeing, Hughes, etc etc....were better than the German and Soviet scientists....

[Richard Kimball]

No argument that there were some brilliant US scientists. The Germans, however, had some very forward thinking work. Here's a link to some of the stuff they had on the design board:http://www.luft46.com/mmart/lufartmm.html. The Nazis had some incredible stuff going. Some of it was bizarre, some still affects modern design.