Fiorina is known for leading the acquisition of Compaq Corp. in 2001 in the largest tech merger in history. In doing so, she would show cost savings by layoffs of a certain chunk of employees. "Cost synergies" was the label. I think the expected number at the time was around 10k. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=23061...
In the next 4 years, Fiorina would sell off the printing business (which had higher margins) and double-down on the PC business (with lower margins.) Timing as it was, the dot-com bubble burst which affected every hardware maker (since tech companies needed to buy hardware to operate.)
She basically made the absolute wrong bets, and as a result many jobs were destroyed. Between HP and Compaq, the collective companies lost more than $13 Billion in shareholder value. Other companies did at that time as well, but HP was by far the worst.
When tracing the history of HP performance during Fiorina's tenure as CEO, she is arguably one of the worst who has ever guided a publicly-traded US company. A simple before-and-after of the company's position from the day she took leadership until the day she left is not a pretty picture.
She also spun out the original HP business of test and measurement equipment, chips, transceivers, etc as Agilent (now Keysight). I never ever thought of HP as a computer company. To me HP was oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, and lightwave measurement gear. Spinning Agilent out was shocking to many people at the time.
When she sold off printing and spun out Agilent, what were the results? If they did better on their own then with HP, then that was a smart move, even if "HP" as a company was diminished. If she sold them for cash and invested that poorly, then that was not a smart move.
Those who say that the firings were justified are probably correct, but if Fiorina is running for a position where she is expected to “create jobs,” her record at this task should be front and center.
I don't think you can put someone in the "worst ever" category without bankruptcy. There has been a lot of very shitty CEOs over the years, some of them criminal.
Bankruptcy and criminality? Enron[1] comes to mind.
Kenneth Lay[2], the founder and final CEO of Enron, was convicted of multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud, and would have been one of the few CEOs to have actually been sent to prison. However, he died before the judge had the chance to sentence him. Enron, of course, suffered bankruptcy.
Jeffrey Skilling[3], who stepped down as CEO of Enron (to be replaced by Lay), is currently serving a lengthy prison term.
HP may have suffered under Fiorina, but at least they're still alive.
In the next 4 years, Fiorina would sell off the printing business (which had higher margins) and double-down on the PC business (with lower margins.) Timing as it was, the dot-com bubble burst which affected every hardware maker (since tech companies needed to buy hardware to operate.)
She basically made the absolute wrong bets, and as a result many jobs were destroyed. Between HP and Compaq, the collective companies lost more than $13 Billion in shareholder value. Other companies did at that time as well, but HP was by far the worst.
When tracing the history of HP performance during Fiorina's tenure as CEO, she is arguably one of the worst who has ever guided a publicly-traded US company. A simple before-and-after of the company's position from the day she took leadership until the day she left is not a pretty picture.