NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: …By every metric that mattered, HP was in far worse shape when [ Carly Fiorina] was fired than when she was hired. The company’s stock price dropped more than 50 percent during her tenure, compared to a 7 percent drop in the S.&P. 500. And net earnings dropped to $2.4 billion from $3.1 billion during that same time. The Compaq merger, meanwhile, was a misguided fiasco; today, fiasco; today, virtually all remnants of it have disappeared from HP. Fiorina’s me-me-me leadership style demoralized the company and its shareholders. When she walked out the door in February 2005 — with a $21 million severance package — the stock jumped nearly 7 percent.
[Donald] Trump? He’s a business legend, all right, — in his own mind. To listen to him, you’d think he is the greatest business person of all time. He is not even close. What he mainly is, as his presidential campaign is proving, is our era’s P.T. Barnum…
And with some $900 million in personal guarantees, he avoided personal bankruptcy by a whisker. Again, according to O’Brien, Trump borrowed millions from his siblings to keep his head above water. Today, a far more cautious Donald Trump runs what amounts to a Potemkin company, with a staff that mainly licenses his “brand.” He owns very few of the buildings with the Trump name on them… (more)
