An excellent, information-packed tour through Carly Fiorina's personal business life. While every autobiography is inherently biased, Carly does an excellent job in trying to be fair to her critics. That is not an easy thing to do for any human being.

With regard to HP itself, as a former user of engineering-related HP measurement products in the past, I was always impressed with the quality of HP products, but always found their documentation lagging. After reading Carly's account of what they faced in 1999 forward, and after reading subsequent information about HP in subsequent decades, HP absolutely NEEDED someone like Carly to come in and "take the bull by the horns". Any public company MUST grow beyond its founders or it will DIE. Carly clearly helped facilitate that change in the 1999-2005 years, despite the opposition of some board members and the idiocy of some employees & others who are too married to the founders. This is now 2020, not 1939. While the "HP Way" may have been a wonderful slogan and managed to get the company through the first 50 years of its life, the "HP Way" MUST continue to mature, as is necessary with any other public company.

My 2 cents. ( )

Despite a lot of ego and hand-slamming on her bosses' desks, this is still a very insightful and inspiring read. ( )

Despite a lot of ego and hand-slamming on her bosses' desks, this is still a very insightful and inspiring read. ( )

Interesting business book which describes the cut throat business world at the executive level. Don't feel too sorry though for the author's demise from HP as the lower level employees of any company get a much shorter end of the stick. Most executives like Carly feel they bring allot of value to the companies they lead, but their views on values they bring are highly overrated. If you compare value and compensation to an hourglass, entry level employees at the bottom are overpaid for the initial value they bring. As their career advances, they are squeezed into the neck bringing more value than compensation. The key is to get through the neck to the upper level of the hourglass where executives like Carly reside - at the top and overpaid. ( )

I have a confession to make. I am yet another Hewlett-Packard refugee. I was at HP when Carly Fiorina was CEO. Working on a design team that was almost all male, it was exhilerating to have a female CEO. But, like so many other HP employees, I felt that Carly was calculating and immune to the charm of "Bill and Dave" and the HP Way. I agreed with the sentiments of most of my co-workers that Carly Fiorina was a ...(rhymes with witch). Although I was no longer at HP when Carly was ousted, I cheered along with the rest of the valley. But, a few weeks ago, I saw Carly speak at the Flint Center. She was warm and engaging and refreshingly honest about her career and especially her time at HP. She impressed me enough to listen to her autobiography, Tough Choices . I'm sure the past several years have improved my perspective on HP, but after listening to the book, my opinion of Carly has changed. She is intelligent, capable, and possibly saved HP from extinction. Now if only I could change her political views...


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