Backfire: Carly Fiorina's High-Stakes Battle for the Soul of Hewlett-Packard

by Peter Burrows

An insider's look at the internal turmoil at one of the world's premier high-tech companies
This is the inside story of Hewlett-Packard Company's struggle to regain its former glory, and of the high-stakes battle between CEO Carly Fiorina and family scion Walter Hewlett over how best to achieve that goal. For decades, HP was admired not only for its innovative products and soaring stock price, but for its egalitarian corporate culture and father-knows-best integrity. Backfire explains how the company fell on hard times, recounts the historic decision that made Fiorina the world's top-ranking female executive, and brings to life the backlash that resulted when she tried to impose her charismatic salesmanship on the aging icon. Top BusinessWeek journalist Peter Burrows gives the dramatic blow-by-blow of Hewlett's effort to kill Fiorina's most controversial move of all, her $19 billion purchase of rival Compaq Computer. Fiorina won by a whisker, after the most expensive proxy fight in history and a dramatic lawsuit that accused the company of illegally fixing the vote. This gripping, ongoing story includes fascinating personalities and dramatic boardroom and courtroom drama.
Peter Burrows (Alameda, CA) has been a technology reporter for BusinessWeek for nine years and has covered the HP saga from the start. The department editor for BusinessWeek's computer coverage, he has been the principal chronicler of Fiorina's tenure at HP, and has written three cover stories on the subject. He has also written numerous other cover stories, including looks at Steve Jobs's Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy.

Genres: Business, Management

312 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2003

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had not heard of Carly Fiorina until she ran for president this year. So, I thought I'd read this book about her career as background - would have been nice if it had covered her firing from HP two years after it went to press, but I got the idea ...

When she walks away, she walks away. Told her first husband, "We will never speak again" the last time she moved stuff out of their house where he was living; he remained shocked as it wasn't acrimonious, just really really cold. Curiously, she moved her way up through the break-up phase at AT&T, with a nice title at Lucent's sales division. However, almost immediately she had her office transferred to the east coast to distance herself from the team she was supposedly heading. She had luck most of us couldn't even fantasize about it seems, as Lucent pretty much went belly up right after she was hired as HP CEO. She wouldn't have gotten the HP job at all had they waited much longer; moreover, their selection process was so problematic that she was essentially the best of a bad lot for them. Later in the book, we learn that she received a WHOPPING HP bonus to compensate her for her "unvested shares" in Lucent, based on the price when she left that job, rather than the $1/share they would have been worth had she not been hired by HP at that time.

Her problem was that she was all sales hype, where target goals can be met with sleight-of-hand tricks, or explained away when needed. However, a CEO really can't do that for a whole company. At one point at HP, she was gung ho about buying out a company for quite a lot; that fell through, and a competitor got it for 1/3 of what Fiorina was pushing the HP board to shell out. Much is made of how she "charms" people, though I'm left confused as her debate persona seems pretty damned harsh to me! Much has been made of layoffs, but the author made it clear that HP had a fair number of "dead wood" employees, all-but-retired on the job with full salaries, kept in place by inertia and goodwill.

I agree with other reviewers who've felt the story got a bit bogged down on the corporate internals at time, but I'm still glad I read it. I feel the author tried to present a balanced view, quoting folks with favorable things to say about her. On the whole, I'm left as puzzled as a quoted associate: "I never really knew where enthusiasm for the company ended and enthusiasm for 'Team Carly' picked up with her."

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good read if you lived through this time in the technology industry. I would have preferred more details on Carly Fiorina's entire tenure at HP rather than so much detail about the acquisition of Compaq and the proxy vote. Overall, and from a woman's point of view, it is very important to have insight on pioneers like Carly, who have made their way to the top of significant American corporations. The decisions they are forced to make both on the way and at the top, challenge and leverage their feminine instincts.

[Heidi Holford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I totally do not remember reading this book, though my records indicate that I did. Carly Fiorina's reign marked the beginning of the end for HP. As Mark Hurd continues to gut the founding vision of the company, the best people are leaving, and what was once a shining jewel in America's corporate grown has become just another crap factory.

[Carly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author was very informed on Carly Fiorina; however, he was very biased and tried to paint her as an evil being rather than present the the information objectively