Synopses & Reviews
"Reading at times like a Clancy novel and at others like a Greek tragedy, Burrows?s Backfire presents a detailed picture of how a leader can rob a company of its soul and cause it to stray from the principles that had made it enduringly great. Read it and weep."
?Jerry I. Porras
Lane Professor of Organizational Behavior and Change Emeritus, Stanford Business School
coauthor, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
"Peter Burrows has written a fascinating account of the largest high-tech merger and proxy fight of all time. Riveting stories about Carly Fiorina, Walter Hewlett, and the melodrama in the HP corporate boardroom make this book a great read as well as an object lesson in corporate governance and corporate change."
?David B. Yoffie
Starr Professor of International Business Administration, Harvard Business School
author, Judo Strategy: Turning Your Competitors? Strength to Your Advantage
"Carly Fiorina?s story as told by Burrows illustrates well the timeless role of leaders: to help organizations work through necessary but painful changes that don?t happen naturally."
?Robert Burgelman
Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business
coauthor, Strategy Is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company?s Future
"A well-researched view inside the controversial management transition at HP. The personality-dominated decision-making process at HP shows us how the power of personalities can override and reshape business legacies. Backfire has all the makings of a modern historical novel."
?Regis McKenna
author, Total Access and Relationship Marketing: Successful Strategies for the Age of the Customer
"At a time when corporate governance was a most important issue in American business, the merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq produced a proxy battle that should have embarrassed everyone involved. Backfire tells the story in all its gory detail. It is must reading for investors, executives, and anyone who cares about corporate governance."
?Roger McNamee
cofounder, Integral Capital Partners and Silver Lake Partners
Review
"Reading at times like a Clancy novel and at others like a Greek tragedy, Burrowss Backfire presents a detailed picture of how a leader can rob a company of its soul and cause it to stray from the principles that had made it enduringly great. Read it and weep." Jerry I. Porras, Lane Professor of Organizational Behavior and Change Emeritus, Stanford Business School, coauthor Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
Review
"At a time when corporate governance was a most important issue in American business, the merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq produced a proxy battle that should have embarrassed everyone involved. Backfire tells the story in all its gory detail. It is must reading for investors, executives, and anyone who cares about corporate governance." Roger McNamee, cofounder Integral Capital Partners and Silver Lake Partners
Review
"Peter Burrows has written a fascinating account of the largest high-tech merger and proxy fight of all time. Riveting stories about Carly Fiorina, Walter Hewlett, and the melodrama in the HP corporate boardroom make this book a great read as well as an object lesson in corporate governance and corporate change." David B. Yoffie, Starr Professor of International Business Administration, Harvard Business School, author Judo Strategy: Turning Your Competitors Strength to Your Advantage
Review
"A well-researched view inside the controversial management transition at HP. The personality-dominated decision-making process at HP shows us how the power of personalities can override and reshape business legacies. Backfire has all the makings of a modern historical novel." Regis McKenna, author Total Access and Relationship Marketing: Successful Strategies for the Age of the Customer
Review
"Carly Fiorinas story as told by Burrows illustrates well the timeless role of leaders: to help organizations work through necessary but painful changes that dont happen naturally." Robert Burgelman, Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business, coauthor Strategy Is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Companys Future
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
Hewlett-Packard, the venerable computer maker, was seeing hard times for the first time in its six-decade history. In an effort to shake things up, the company brought in an outside CEO the daring and charismatic Carly Fiorina.
Fiorina brought style and new thinking to HP, but she also brought change. Her efforts at rapid reform frequently collided with the familiar "HP Way," the egalitarian corporate culture and integrity that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard had instilled in the company from its very beginning. Many say her initiatives brought little immediate improvement in the company's fortunes. Then came the single biggest move that would change HP forever: a proposed merger with Compaq. Rubber-stamped by the board, it seemed the deal would go through without a hitch. But board member and family scion Walter Hewlett saw HP's merger with Compaq as potentially disastrous.
With the board firmly entrenched behind Fiorina, Hewlett faced a stark choice: accept what he knew to be a strategic error, or fight and potentially expose the company to a divisive, destructive public fray. Hewlett chose to fight and what followed was the biggest, most costly proxy battle in American corporate history.
Backfire tells the inside story of HP's struggle to regain its former glory, and of the high-stakes battle between Fiorina and Hewlett over how best to achieve that goal.
Top BusinessWeek journalist Peter Burrows presents the controversial and gripping business story behind the epic battle in a tale that reads like a great novel of intrigue. Backfire offers the first blow-by-blow account of the corporate struggle that will eventually decide the fate of two computer-making giants. Burrows uncovers how Fiorina's greatest victory might lead to her ultimate downfall.
With revelations about:
- Fiorina's time at Lucent
- Over-aggressive sales practices that could spell failure
- The courtroom drama
- A behind-the-scenes look at what HP doesn't want you to know
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-282) and index.
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Peter Burrows has been a technology journalist for BusinessWeek for nine years, during which time he has written several cover stories on Hewlett-Packard. As the department editor for BusinessWeeks computer coverage, he has been the principal chronicler of Fiorinas tenure at Hewlett-Packard.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments.
Prologue.
Chapter 1. The Showdown.
Chapter 2. The Emergence of Carleton Sneed.
Chapter 3. Inside the HP Way.
Chapter 4. Trouble in Paradise.
Chapter 5. The Making of a Star.
Chapter 6. Searching for a CEO.
Chapter 7. An Eventful Honeymoon.
Chapter 8. Unraveling.
Chapter 9. Compaq Cometh.
Chapter 10. The November Surprise.
Chapter 11. Proxy Fight.
Chapter 12. The Lawsuit.
Epilogue.
Notes.
Sources.
A Note about Sourcing.
Index.