although i think sorkin leans left, hard to argue with his analysis here. HPQ was not in better shape when fiorina left than when she started. that’s the bottom line. also, i don’t think it DQ’s her
Not a Fiorina fan, but the analysis should be against other tech companies in the same business to be a fair analysis. Also they split into Agilent and HP, sold the consulting business to IBM and merged with Compaq so you probably need to look at market cap. as a comparison tool.
As near as I can tell on a quick search she started with a market cap of $106B, That went down to $62B in 2001 (spin off of Agilent and dot com bubble not too bad a loss). She left in 2005 60B market cap which is low considering they acquired Compaq over that time. However it set the stage for HP to become #1 in PCs in the ensuing Hurd years.
She gets blamed for about 30000 layoffs, but Hurd cut 15000 or so more positions when he came in, so the worst you could say is that Carly was too soft as a CEO.
I've seen one internet article that says she increased revenues at HP each year of her tenure except 2001. So was she a perfect CEO no, but there are very few perfect CEOs around. It's hard to run a company. Her successor Hurd made acquisitions that cost more than the market cap the company had when he left. So was he a great CEO? Was he significantly better than Carly?
This is what makes Donald Trump the better candidate. He took over his father's business and turned it into a multibillion dollar enterprise. He had to deal with the tough regulations the Libs put in place in the democratic strongholds in which he worked. He knows first hand what risking your own money and being successful is all about. Carly, and the rest of the Republican field only know how to risk other people's money. (Sorry had to get a plug in, couldn't resist)