How Steve Jobs Outsmarted Carly Fiorina 328
HughPickens.com writes: Carly Fiorina likes to boast about her friendship with Apple founder Steve Jobs but Fortune Magazine reports that it turns out Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late leader. In January 2004, Steve Jobs and Carly Fiorina cut a deal where HP could slap its name on Apple's wildly successful iPod and sell it through HP retail channels but HP still managed to botch things up. The MP3 player worked just like a regular iPod, but it had HP's logo on the back and in return HP agreed to continue pre-loading iTunes onto its PCs. According to Steven Levy soon after the deal with HP was inked, Apple upgraded the iPod, making HP's version outdated and because of Fiorina's deal HP was banned from selling its own music player until August 2006. "This was a highly strategic move to block HP/Compaq from installing Windows Media Store on their PCs," says one Apple source. "We wanted iTunes Music store to be a definitive winner. Steve only did this deal because of that."
In short, Fiorina's "good friend" Steve Jobs blithely mugged her and HP's shareholders. By getting Fiorina to adopt the iPod as HP's music player, Jobs had effectively gotten his software installed on millions of computers for free, stifled his main competitor, and gotten a company that prided itself on invention to declare that Apple was a superior inventor.
In short, Fiorina's "good friend" Steve Jobs blithely mugged her and HP's shareholders. By getting Fiorina to adopt the iPod as HP's music player, Jobs had effectively gotten his software installed on millions of computers for free, stifled his main competitor, and gotten a company that prided itself on invention to declare that Apple was a superior inventor.
Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late leader (Score:5, Insightful)
Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late leader
Why do you even post things anymore, timothy?
Re:Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late lead (Score:5, Funny)
Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late leader
Why do you even post things anymore, timothy?
"Why do you even of things anymore, timothy?".
Fixed that for you.
Re:Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late lead (Score:5, Funny)
Powerful you have become. The Timothy I sense in you.
Re:Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late lead (Score:5, Funny)
I personally believe that the Timothy are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh, people out there in our nation don't have spellcheck and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.
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Because 2016 elections... (Score:3)
Thus gossip about a stuuuuupid presidential candidate's former business deal (from 2004) with an asshole who's been dead since 2011 - is suddenly click-worthy "news".
In other news... Pangea broke up. Suck it.
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Reunite Gondwana! Petition is now open.
Re:Because 2016 elections... (Score:4, Interesting)
A presidential candidate's demonstrated incompetence in a leadership position is "stuff that matters". So is major corporate executive's, since it helps dispell the lingering idea that leaders get paid more than underlings because they're worth more, rather than just more powerful. The remains of the myth of the divinely appointed kings are hindering our democracies by making the decision-making positions extremely attractive to psychopaths, narcissists and people with other mental issues, and need to die.
Re:Because 2016 elections... (Score:4, Insightful)
A presidential candidate's demonstrated incompetence in a leadership position is "stuff that matters". So is major corporate executive's, since it helps dispell the lingering idea that leaders get paid more than underlings because they're worth more, rather than just more powerful. The remains of the myth of the divinely appointed kings are hindering our democracies by making the decision-making positions extremely attractive to psychopaths, narcissists and people with other mental issues, and need to die.
One - incompetence has NEVER stopped anyone getting elected.
Nobody cares about incompetence. Neither the people at the voting booth NOR the people in the party pushing that person for office.
People care about "Is he/she like me?". Can they identify with the candidate and his/her ideas or in other words - do they LIKE the candidate.
It's a popularity contest.
Just a while ago US had an incompetent lunatic with a history of substance abuse problem who believes he talks to god, with god giving him instructions on how to run the country - running the country and starting decades long wars.
Remember that time when an undiagnosed Alzheimer's patient ran a country, with plans to "win" a nuclear war with USSR by using "lazors"?
Remember that airhead from Alaska being and actual presidential candidate?
Remember that other guy being "a robot" and "not cool" to be president?
Remember that certain senator from Kansas being "too old"?
It's a popularity contest. People vote for whom they like more based on their public image.
Hint: A sex scandal does not mean someone is incompetent at their job - except in politics.
People don't care about competence. If they did, there'd be a test and an "experience in office" requirement for political positions.
You know... something to show that a politician actually knows how government works.
Imagine THAT crazy thing - politicians with actual governing GRADES and stats.
Instead, elections are about the ability to pretend to be everything to everyone.
Which is what's "making the decision-making positions extremely attractive to psychopaths, narcissists and people with other mental issues" - not a myth of divine kings.
Thus, elections being a popularity contest...
"Jobs fucked Fiorina" is irrelevant historical information (over a decade old) which, were elections about competence, would actually indicate more that she was a high stakes player who once lost to Divine Steve.
But it's not.
It's a cheap, "dirty laundry" attempt at painting old news as relevant in order to affect someone's popularity by labeling them as "totally tricked" and "outsmarted" instead of what they are - incompetent at running a company.
Which might actually mean that she has great chances - in politics.
After all... People loved that other MBA who kept ruining businesses he ran. Maybe she should get herself a baseball team?
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It's the flaw that allows Democrats to fool Republicans
Except Bush. He can't get fooled again.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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'Why do you even post things anymore, timothy?'
I do wonder that myself, especially consider what isn't chosen from Slashdot Recent [slashdot.org]
Re:Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late lead (Score:5, Funny)
This begs the question...
Did Carly may have outlived of by Apple's late leader?
Carly may have been outfoxed by a rock (Score:3)
Carly Fiorina pretty much seemed to be doing all she could to destroy HP. When she bought Compaq she was already thought to be ready to be pushed out the door and many even suggested her main motive in doing so was to get the board to wait and see how that purchase worked out before showing her the door, buying her some more time. And it is worth remembering that the purchase of ailing Compaq brought little or nothing to HP that they didn't already have, and was at a higher price than even what the Chinese
weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from the incomprehensibility of "...it turns out Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late leader.." anyone else find it curious that we suddenly see a deal between HP and Apple (that allowed a downward-trending computer mfg company to tie itself to the "big up and comer") spun as "Jobs OUTFOXED Fiorina"?
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the deal itself, it definitely sounds like HP tried to gain advantage, but Apple came out as the clear winner, with HP (and Fiorinia) looking entirely foolish. Given the rest of her tenure at HP (and elsewhere), I'm not surprised in the least to hear it. She's never been any sort of true visionary, and having Jobs leave her in the dust with having doubled down on what was soon to be yesterday's technology, while he focused on what was really key is exactly what I would expect.
So is it really a "hit piece" to tell what happened, and put it in proper context? Why was HP wasting its time doing things like buying Compaq, and trying to piggyback on Apple's successes? If she was really a visionary, shouldn't she have been leading the market and innovating the way Jobs was?
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that the rest of the Republican candidates seem to be experts at leading lemmings off cliffs, I'd say that was a point in her favour.
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Or you know, vote for the decent alternative, Bernie Sanders (even if you disagree with his politics you have to admit the man is objectively a decent human being such rare, much weird, wow)
captcha: Decoys
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Bernie is great, but in a hypothetical scenario where you have to choose from the Republican candidates, which one would you pick? That's kinda what we're talking about here.
Personally, I'd pick Trump easily. All the others are either religious wackos, Objectivism fans, or one of the worst CEOs in recent history. Trump is the only one of the bunch who's sane and connected.
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Funny)
As for the Democrats, right now it seems like a choice between Dr. Pepper and Coke Zero.
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Insightful)
To call a man decent because he admits that he wants to steal everything you own, is missing the point.
Since when did Bernie Sanders become a Capitalist?
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Insightful)
socialism: public safety nets. much cheaper and higher quality healthcare. affordable higher education. source: canada, denmark, germany, norway, etc... countries richer, healthier, happier, better educated, and *freer* than the usa: no financial parasites funneling money out of their society via cozy relationships paid for by corrupt elections, for nothing in return, because regulating corporations and plutocrats is "against freedom"
communism: gulags and mass starvation and no free speech and no free press and no freedom of religion and control and fear and genocide and hour long lines to get scratchy toilet paper. that's canada and germany, right?
american moron: socialism = communism, because hysterical low iq propaganda that hasn't had an original thought since mccarthy's 1950s red scare bullshit means that binary choices between communism and capitalism are the only choices in a subject matter, economics, that in reality, has thousands of complex variations. but... we'll just stick to our ignorant kneejerk biases, because it serves our plutocrat masters who produce the propaganda to keep us misinformed, poor and unhealthy, and we like it because we're useful fools
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your healthcare system costs 100-1,000x less than ours does and you live longer with a higher quality of life
your higher education is so cheap, you'll even take americans for free if they do good on their exams, no need to even learn german
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi... [bbc.com]
of course germany has problems, every nation does, you're an idiot if you think i was describing germany as some sort of paradise
but from this side of the pond, germany is clearly and unequivocally doing better on the issue of social safet
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you want to give the benefit of the doubt. it is mostly stupid people out there. nine times out of ten, they genuinely don't understand what the fuck they are talking about but open their mouths anyway
if i am having a conversation here with mostly europeans, and the difference is therefore in terminology (there are dumb europeans as well as dumb americans, but the terminology differences means indeed i have to side with caution), then i apologize
but if i am talking to the usual low iq propagandized american
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Sometimes corporate executives just make stupid mistakes and sometimes corporate executives are paid to make stupid mistakes by their competitors. There a billions of dollars hidden in secret accounts in tax havens with millions shifting from account to account all of the time.
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Funny)
Time for Putin to pull the wool over her eyes if by some fluke she becomes president.
"We're allowed to put our American flag logo on the back of all Russian missiles fired in Syria."
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The facts may be right, but the context it presents seems suspect. AFAIK HP never made its own MP3 player. If the presented context were correct, HP would've made one as soon as their contractual prohibition with Apple expired in 2006. That doesn't seem to have happened.
So the proper context is probably that HP didn't want to make an MP3 player, but they wanted to keep their name recognition up in the MP3 player market
In case anyone doesn't realize Carly is an idiot.. (Score:3)
JOHN FUND: You, at Lucent, and at Hewlett Packard, began at the dawn of the internet era, seeing the possibilities of what that would bring. And here we are, 20 odd years after the World Wide Web, and we've created a marvelous industry, marvelous possibilities. The Obama administration has decided, this can't be left to its own devices, we need Net Neutrality. And even though Congress doesn't want it, and people in both parties in Congress don't want it, and the courts have blocked them consistently, they're moving forward of course with what they call executive action, which I call the divine right of kings. Uh, what do you think about Net Neutrality, and how should we fight it if we should?
CARLY: Well we should- it's ridiculous. We now have an FCC, deciding on a 3-2 vote, that the Internet will be regulated with 400 pages of legislation. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Of course, the dirty little secret of that regulation, which is the same dirty little secret of Obamacare or Dodd-Frank or all of these other huge complicated pieces of regulation or legislation, is that they don't get written on their own, they get written in part by lobbyists for big companies who want to understand that the rules are going to work for them. And this is part of what people see. Look, crony capitalism is alive and well. Elizabeth Warren, of course, is wrong about what to do about it. She claims that the way to <airquotes>solve</airquotes> crony capitalism is more complexity, more regulation, more legislation. Worse tax codes. And of course the more complicated government gets- and it's really complicated now- the less the small and the powerless can deal with it. And so the big get bigger, the powerful get more powerful, the wealthy and the well-connected get more wealthy and more well-connected. I mean, that's a fact. It's what's happening. And it's partially why people feel so disconnected. So, the dirty little secret of those 400 pages of legislation in Net Neutrality was, who was in the middle of arguing for net neutrality? Verizon, Comcast, Google, I mean, all these companies were playing. They weren't saying "we don't need this," they were saying "we need it." And so, the only way to level the playing field, so that the small, the new, the entrepreneurial, the powerless, have a shot, is to reduce all this complexity. And meanwhile, while, you know, the big are getting bigger, we're crushing the small. So we're now for the first time in history, we are destroying more businesses than we are creating. We are destroying more businesses than we are creating- it's a terrible statistic. And it means that we're never going to get this economy growing and growing again, yes I had the great privilege of playing uh, important roles in Lucent and Hewlett Packard, but like most people I started out at a little company. I started out as a secretary in a nine-person real estate firm. My husband started out driving a tow truck for a family-owned auto body shop. Most Americans start in little humble businesses, which create 2/3 of the new jobs and employ half the people. So when we're crushing those little businesses, as we are every time we roll out a new, complicated piece of legislation or regulation, we're crushing the possibilities of this economy.
JOHN FUND: I grew up in Northern California, and part of the ethos was, reading about Hewlett and Packard starting their business in a garage.
CARLY: A garage. Two guys in a garage. By the way, Google started out that way too, in a dorm room. But they seem to have forgotten that. [audience laughs]
JOHN FUND: Well, uh, they have new friends in Washington.
CARLY: Yes, they do. Yes they do.
The transcript doesn't do it justice at all- her tics and mannerisms while shoveling this horseshit will make you want to smack her upside the head. [youtu.be] Carly is a clueless liar- but I have to admit, I can never tell exactly when she's lying and when she's just being clueless.
Re: In case anyone doesn't realize Carly is an idi (Score:4, Informative)
The fact that an ex-CEO of HP, of all people, is pontificating about Net Neutrality while exposing her ignorance of even the most basic facts about who was involved and what sides they were on seems incredible. Was she merely confused herself or just trying to confuse everyone else? I have no idea.
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I'm not a huge fan of Apple but are you seriously trying to bring back this old argument?
No, they didn't invent computing or touch screens or cell phones or fingerprint readers or most of the components that are part of the things they sell. But the value of what they sell, to those who buy them, is greater than the sum of parts.
Just look at cell phones before the iPhone and ever since. Every major phone since 2007 has a very similar design. If Apple didn't invent a good design, then why was it nonexiste
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Oh please, this is just dumb. The iPod click-wheel isn't innovative? The iPhone wasn't innovative? No, Apple never was the absolute first to market with something, but under Jobs they were frequently first to market with something that people actually really liked, and which caught on, and a big part of that was doing a good job with product design (e.g., compare the old WinCE phones with the first iPhone--who the fuck wants to use a stylus on a phone?).
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been repeatedly demonstrated that it wasn't, in fact. It was just a better effort than similar devices which preceded it.
Right, but not innovation. That's not what this is about.
Oh please. I hate to defend Apple of all companies, but "innovation" is not being the first to come up with the very first version of something, that's "invention". The two are not the same. Putting together existing parts (and refining them significantly) into a new overall package is innovation; it's really the same thing as engineering, but also combined with design.
I still remember when the iPhone first came out. It was truly intuitive and easy to use for people who hadn't used one before, and it was actually attractive; this just wasn't true for preceding devices with their tiny screens with resistive touchscreens and crappy OSes. Thankfully, Android came along later (though it has major problems too, namely mfgrs abandoning devices quickly), but I have to give credit where it's due. The iPhone is the whole reason everyone has a smartphone now; no one cared about them before because they really weren't easy to use (nor attractive).
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Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Informative)
You may not be aware of this, but Fiorina has been citing Jobs to deflect criticism of her for being fired by HP's board. She says that after she was fired he called her up and said "been there!" She's implying that because Jobs was fired and came back even stronger, her being fired from HP is proof she's a genius just like Jobs.
Since she brought up Jobs to make herself look good, it was inevitable that Jobs would be used to make her look bad. She opened that door.
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Make her look bad Her? Not Apple?
I was just wondering how different things would have been, without iTunes. How different Slashdot would have been, had this new batch could have been the real deal, if they had kept the faith and stayed the course. And ignored those products from the walled garden.
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs got booted and went on to outdo Apple sufficently that they ended up buying him back and more or less gutting their own products to rebuild them around his.
Not really. Jobs got booted and went on to meander around aimlessly in computing. His success was with Pixar, not with NeXT. The only reason NeXTStep was superior to Apple's other options is that they had been dicking around incompetently with a variety of OS projects [roughlydrafted.com] which never went anywhere. It's also not clear that NeXTStep was actually a better option than BeOS, but it's cleat that Jobs and NeXT were a package deal, and the rest is history.
The fact that NeXTStep, an overpriced and antiquated wacky Unix variant based around a development system and language nobody wanted to use at the time was superior to MacOS of the day is a testament to how aimless and pointless Apple was without Jobs, not to the quality (or success) of NeXTStep.
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Funny)
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, she was outfoxed.
The PJB-100, the first disk-based MP3 player, was in my hands in 1999 - a full two years before the iPod. HP owned fundamental patents that could have taxed each unit that Apple sold - but seemed to be entirely unaware of that ownership.
Instead, they paid Apple to resell their own inventions. Brilliant!
So yeah, she just totally sucked.
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No, because we read the rest of the summary, where it quite clearly explains how Jobs screwed her. You should try it sometime! (Not screwing her. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I mean reading
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You should try it sometime! (Not screwing her. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Even her ex-husband is bashing her publicly. Poor guy is probably mentally scarred for life.
Re:weakly disguised hit-piece (Score:4, Insightful)
HP made a *really* stupid agreement. It wasn't the only one, and at least this one was legal, but it sure doesn't make Fionna look good. She'd have been better off to not cause this idiocy to be brought back to light.
I still don't understand why iTunes sucks so much (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: I still don't understand why iTunes sucks so m (Score:2, Insightful)
It ran through an OSX emulation layer, that was half baked.
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Because it's programmed by Apple employees?
She killed the calculator group. Never forget! (Score:5, Funny)
I honestly wouldn't vote for her for that reason alone.
Re: She killed the calculator group. Never forget! (Score:3, Interesting)
What was the Corvalis Group going to do? Keep making really nice but rather expensive, calculators for an ever dwindling market? It's not a sustainable product line that could scale today to be anything but a nostalgia product. Besides which, the HP calculators have a high enough build quality that if you really need one you can track one down used for a price that is about the same as you'd pay, inflation adjusted, for a new one. There's nothing new to be added. Your HP-41, 48, or 15 is out there to acquir
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What was the Corvalis Group going to do? Keep making really nice but rather expensive, calculators for an ever dwindling market?
Make them really nice but less expensive.
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Problem is that those products were popular when computers, in general, were expensive, and also, when the built in calculators were the simple ones that just did your basic operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, percentages.... Particularly in Windows 3.1, Windows 95 & 98 and so on. So if you wanted something that just did calculations that gave you sines, cosines, logarithms, these calculators were nice to have.
That's changed since Windows 7 or iOS, when the calculators incl
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If you ever used a 48 with their unit system you wouldn't say that. Nothing is as fast or capable anywhere. As long as units were the same dimensions you could add them in the stack. 3 N*mm + 30 oz*in? No problem it's a couple of button presses.
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Actually I lied. It won't let you do that since oz is a unit of mass. You need to convert it so 3 N*mm + 30 oz*in * 32.2 ft/s^2 works perfect. That's why I love this thing.
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What was the Corvalis Group going to do? Keep making really nice but rather expensive, calculators for an ever dwindling market?
Make them really nice but less expensive.
You can get from a dollar store occasionally a scientific calculator that will do pretty much everything you'll need through the end of a basic STEM degree, at least at those times where you're not able to access a spreadsheet program or Wolfram Alpha.
Honestly, I don't think anybody's going to offer me a calculator that I'd spend much for, simply because to get me to pay more than a few bucks for one I'd want to get something on the level of Wolfram Alpha, at least for straight-up math, without the need for
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That's what I did. I bought 2 extra 48G's and they are sitting in plastic bags with silica gel in my safe. I use my primary every day for the unit conversion feature alone. It is a great tool I bought in 1993. It would be even better with a better screen and faster processor.
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I bought 2 extra 48G's and they are sitting in plastic bags with silica gel in my safe. I use my primary every day for the unit conversion feature alone. It is a great tool I bought in 1993. It would be even better with a better screen and faster processor.
Sounds like a R-Pi project to me, or p'raps a beagle. Interfacing the keyboard should be a relatively simple task...
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Don't you mean R-Pi-N?
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Carly Fiorina was an aweful CEO because of the Compaq merger.
Choosing the iPod over the Zune, or choosing the iPod over its own HP-made mp3 player, I can't fault her for that.
That would have been a good decision even if she wouldn't have done the temporary deal with Apple. A company can't be the winner in every category. It has to pick and choose its battles (even if no company pays you to lay down your weapons). Also, it takes a lot more than just a good hardware product to win in a particular category (ta
What new version of the iPod? (Score:2)
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The 4th Gen Classic in 20/40GB size came out in July of 2004.
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Oops, that seems to be the model that HP sold. But the 4th Gen "Photo" came out on October 26, 2004. That may be the model that is being referenced.
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This one. [wikipedia.org]
The iPod Photo is a portable media player designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It was the top-of-the-line model in Apple's iPod family. It was positioned as a premium higher-end spin-off of the fourth-generation iPod on October 26, 2004.
Re: What new version of the iPod? (Score:3)
"Initially, HP only offered the 20 and 40 GB 4th-generation iPods. HP later added the iPod mini, the iPod photo, and the iPod shuffle to the lineup.[4] Thanks to HP's distribution network, the iPod+HP was sold in retailers where Apple did not have any presence at the time, which included Wal-Mart, RadioShack, and Office Depot. Many of these retailers now sell Apple iPods."
From Wikipedia
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Based on this, it doesn't sound like Jobs outfoxed HP, more like HP shot themselves in the foot.
This is no different than HP announcing the HP Touchpad and then immediately turning around and discontinuing the product, dumping them at firesale prices. Granted, they would have had a tough slog against apple, but if they had kept at it they could have carved out a nice profitable niche. WebOS was ahead of Android in so many ways....
Big Whoop (Score:5, Informative)
A three-legged cat could out-fox Carly Fiorina.
http://www.politico.com/magazi... [politico.com]
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Comparing HP, a single company, to the tech index, or to "other tech companies" is basically a lie in broad daylight. How about to competitors?
Oh, there it is [legalinsurrection.com]
Compaq was a mistake, no question. The "learning from your mistakes" bullet point is more about acknowledging in public - she could have learned, but still puts on a front in public. Much of the rest of that is really just personal attack, for which Fiorina should be reviled, but this author trusted, or more about Compaq.
Certainly she's no saint, and
Motorola (Score:4, Informative)
There was a deal with Motorola too, to put a music player on a phone, which was limited to 100 songs or something. At the time I thought Apple came out ahead on that one.
I don't see how this hurt HP (Score:5, Interesting)
HP didn't want to enter the music player gizmo biz, otherwise they wouldn't do the iPod deal to begin with. And not having Microsoft's music spam-ware on HP's PC's didn't hurt HP, it hurt Microsoft.
The only way it would hurt HP is if MS was contractually locked out from bribing HP to put the MS spam-ware on the HP PC's. But we don't know how much MS was willing to pay.
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HP was already in the music player biz, but the fact that you didn't know that is kinda the point of why this was such a bad deal for them. They pulled their players when the HP iPod debuted. And Apple didn't have to pay to get iTunes onto those computers. HP computers, simply on account of there being so many of them getting sold at the time, were valuable real estate: get your software on those machines and millions upon millions of people would likely be using it. They could have sold that right for tens
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HP provided an installed based of iTunes users around 2005.
In comparison, Microsoft was under anti-trust monitoring until at least 2007, so there would be very little that Microsoft could do without attracting unwanted attention. "Willing to pay" maybe, but it would have at a minimum extended the monitoring. Which doesn't sound bad, unless you understand a little more about how business decisions were made during those times.
HP may not have lost anything, but it gave an awful lot to Apple when it could ha
sad (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that these candidates are the best that we as a country can muster is pretty pathetic. I know we have really thoughtful and intelligent people in this country, but for whatever reason, they don't seem to be able (or want) to compete with the horribly inept batch of clowns that we inevitably get.
America is basically like a very badly run company (e.g. like HP). The mediocre rise to the top. Actually Carly seems exactly like the sort of president we deserve. She can speak well enough to disguise the fact that what she is saying is completely retarded. Compare this skillset to Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, and Trump, and it makes her look like a teacher in a room full of shitty kids.
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I know we have really thoughtful and intelligent people in this country, but for whatever reason, they don't seem to be able (or want) to compete with the horribly inept batch of clowns that we inevitably get.
What smart person wants to be blamed for every bad decision that other people make, every bad outcome no matter how much planning went into something, arguing with the "Pepsi" people who just don't want to agree with something from "Team Coke", owe this one a favor for lending support of a bill of theirs that inevitably means putting your name on something you don't actually support, make decisions that will affect thousands of lives in ways that couldn't possibly be foreseen (in some cases literally condem
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There are plenty of intelligent people who are willing to do other crappy jobs. There are people who have jobs helping kids who are dying of cancer.
I think the problem is that we as a country are not capable of electing the right people. We are a bunch of dummies electing other dummies to represent us.
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This article was about Carly Fiorina, and we haven't seen Carly Fiorina debating any democrats in this election yet. Furthermore we haven't even seen any democrats debating yet this election.
I know the democrats have some pretty pathetic candidates as well, but on average the don't seem as bad, and there are less of them. I think Hillary is a fucking disaster. I think she is actually a bad human being, which is arguably worse than being some idiot republican. If the election were held today, I'd probabl
If you're gonna get screwed, get screwed by a pro (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno. If I had to choose between negotiating with Steve Jobs or Vladimir Putin, I think I'd pick Putin as the safer choice.
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I dunno. If I had to choose between negotiating with Steve Jobs or Vladimir Putin, I think I'd pick Putin as the safer choice.
Yeah, all things considered I'd say Putin wishes he was Jobs. I mean, the odds are pretty good that if Putin dropped dead tomorrow...there'd be a huge party on his grave right after his funeral...and it'd only not be replacing his funeral is because, well, appearances.
It's unlikely that even now you could manage to get anywhere near the same turnout for a party on Jobs's grave, even this long after his death. Instead, he has a mourning cult of personality that seems relatively healthy.
If you're going to co
Did Carly get paid? (Score:2)
To the top executives, that's really the only question. They will happily load a company up with debt, execute massive stock buybacks to boost the share price, and to hell with the future and everyone else, I got mine.
So, did Carly get paid? If she did, it's perfectly understandable.
What's troubling is, if she didn't get paid, then she got owned, and getting owned so strategically like this is not a quality one would want in a national leader. Lack of strategic vision is very problematic. Merely being self
Seems more like shitty attitude (Score:2)
Re:Sad to see the HP culture disappearing (Score:5, Insightful)
I always took a full week of vacation off when I worked there.
Is this what USasians think is a generous vacation policy? You're seriously impressed about being able to take a whole week of vacation?!? LOL.
Re:Sad to see the HP culture disappearing (Score:4, Informative)
I KNOW! If you tell these guys what minimum mandated vacation time looks like in France they flat out think you're lying.
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Is this what USasians think is a generous vacation policy? You're seriously impressed about being able to take a whole week of vacation?!? LOL.
No.
HP used to have a really nice sabbatical program, where you could take a whole year off.
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I sure hope one of the other ten candidates (Score:3)
I sure hope neither Fiorina or Trump gets the nomination. And Biden rather than Sanders or Clinton. Dr. Carson seems like a far more capable and thoughtful person. Cruz knows what he's talking about and has actually produced full workable legislation like a federal budget, whereas the other candidates only produced sound bites. There are several options better than Fiorina and Trump.
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Carson is a young-earth creationist and a crackpot. He's definitely not "thoughtful".
Cruz follows Dominionist Theology and keeps trying to shut the government down.
I like Sanders, but I'll take Trump any day over these two wackos. Biden would probably be OK too.
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Carson is a brilliant surgeon - freaking genius, really. Any other subject and he's as smart as a bag of hammers.
Saw a meme floating around last week....a Canadian, a Cuban, and a white supremacist walk into a bar. Bartender says, 'hello, Senator Cruz'.
Who's primary skillset is losing other peop
Margaret Sanger DID Belive in Eugenics (Score:3)
She openly preached it, in fact. [wikipedia.org].
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Just Google "Cruz dominionist" for lots of links.
https://www.quora.com/Is-Ted-C... [quora.com]
http://www.politicususa.com/20... [politicususa.com]
The last one might be "liberal", but it has a video from Cruz's own father. If that's not good enough for you, I don't know what is.
Re: Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late lea (Score:5, Funny)
She is gaining momentum in her campaign so we need to do something to slow her down
Slowing her down isn't necessary on slashdot. While we have a solid conservative majority in the slashdot user base, the overwhelming majority of slashdot conservatives will vote for whoever has the (R) after their name. In november if the ballot says Ghost of Ronald Reagan (D) vs Ficus Tree (R), the Tree will win the slashdot electorate by a landslide.
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In november if the ballot says Ghost of Ronald Reagan (D) vs Ficus Tree (R), the Tree will win the slashdot electorate by a landslide.
Considering how far (R) has shifted to the right since the 80's the party would immediately declare the Ghost of Ronald Reagan to be a Dem. That and declare him satanic.
Re: Carly may have outfoxed of by Apple's late lea (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering how far (R) has shifted to the right since the 80's the party would immediately declare the Ghost of Ronald Reagan to be a Dem.
That is logically sound, indeed Reagan is too liberal to be a republican. However one of the unshakable requirements for republicans is to praise him regardless; and they are not bothered by the hypocrisy (indeed they don't even acknowledge it). So while they should throw him out for being too liberal, they would be unable to bring themselves to do so.
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Hell, these days, he's too liberal to be a democrat. Started prosecutions of bankers when Obama bailed out the banks for a fraud dozens of times as large as the S&N crisis. Insisted that Social Security had nothing to do with the deficit - tell that to Obama's Catfood Commission. Withdrew from Grenada and Lebanon (though he never should have gone in in the first place), whereas Obama has made plans to continue the occupation of
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Of your post I read timothy's editorialification.
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Really? I though he had the reputation of being a visionary prick with strong aesthetic ideas, who tried, not always successfully, to demand technological perfection.
I can't think of a single place where I've run across someone lauding his friendly nature in business practices.
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He should have sprung for the chemo
And started a meth lab with a former dropout. And taken on the cartel. And shipped product to Europe. And showed everyone how to live.