Politics as an escape hatch

Reading these news articles that slam more and more nails into the (perhaps unfairly) already-dead reputation of Hewlett Packard executive Meg Whitman, I keep thinking: what if she’d won her election a couple years ago and was now governor or senator or whatever she was running for? Then nobody would care that her company was falling apart!

Conversely, when Jon Corzine lost his reelection and reentered the business world, he left himself open to charges of acts of corruption that wouldn’t have been possible in congress or from the governor’s office.

But sometimes the immunity can go the other way. Jack Welch still has the street-cred to write Wall Street Journal editorials despite his history of data manipulation, but it’s hard to imagine he could be elected to public office, even if he wanted to. For another example, Al Sharpton was caught out on his lies in a well-publicized court case but that does not stop him from being bankrolled as a quasi-public figure.

Big names in politics and business get away with so much that it’s notable when the magic dries up and their statements get taken with the same skepticism as would be applied, for example, to leaders of foreign countries that are not our allies.

I have no systematic thoughts on this right now but it seems worthy of study.

9 thoughts on “Politics as an escape hatch

      • Andrew: Ah! But of course I already have been following this more directly (in the U.S.) since it happened, I looked up a snarky google site just to give a short background item, since I’m moving between places in London, sorry–but clearly it could have been numerous less jokey sites, as you know. So but I wonder why this is still allowed to happen (Corzining I mean).

    • HP has been in trouble since Carly Fiorina became CEO. After some questionable acquisitions and after the stock went down 50% she was “encouraged” to leave. Her successor similarly screwed up. I wouldn’t put much if any of the blame on Meg Whitman, she’s been on the job for only a short time and is trying to clean up the messes left by her predecessors.

      HP’s biggest problem is that it doesn’t have a clear plan for what to do next. Random acquisitions isn’t a very good business plan.

      As for Carly, she keeps appearing as some sort of expert on shows like Meet the Press. Why they invite her is beyond me. She’s a failed CEO, a failed Senate candidate, what does she have to contribute to these shows?

  1. I agree that it is hard to be sure what is going on in the article. Both sides have incentives to blame the bad results on the other side (the new CEO has to explain poor performance, the seller wants to be clear that they did nothign wrong). However, the example of Welch (above) does make me wonder just how hard it would be “massage” sales data to make a very profitable sale to a larger company.

    That being said, it is also the case that acquisitions are the worst way to grow a company as they often destroy more value than they create.

  2. 1) From all reports I’ve seen , Meg Whitman ran
    eBay pretty well for 10 years, leaving it in decent shape, and handing over the reins to a successor who’d been there for a few years, and runs it well.
    Nothing wrong there.

    2) I guess she wanted a bigger challenge, ie running for Governor of CA, which of course is a big job.
    She spent a bunch of her own money.. Of course, she lost to Jerry Brown, one of the savvier politicians around.
    Moral: being an effective CEO doesn’t automagically confer ability to campaign well or be a good politician. Some CA Republican Party policies likely didn’t help much.
    http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-11-03/news/27080075_1_meg-whitman-oldest-person-california-governor-race
    http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/11/opinion/la-oe-robertstrounstine11-2010jan11
    Her opposition to AB32 was not popular in Silicon Valley.
    3) I would give her credit for taking on the big challenge at HP, she certainly doesn’t need the money.
    I hope she succeeds: HP has long been a great company (even when I was competing with them, I thought they were pretty ethical and competent). The last few years have indeed been sad.

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