> Fiorina, 50, HP's first outside leader, took over in 1999 with a
> mandate to revitalize Silicon Valley's original start-up, founded in
> 1938. HP had become known for an insular and balkanized corporate
> culture celebrated internally as "The HP Way."
> <...>
>
>
> That's funny... I have a friend who retired early, and quite "well to
> do"
> because he was engineering test and measurement techniques for hard
> drives in the 1970s, and the "balkanized" HP cut him in on a patent for
> measuring the "flying height" of the head of the drive over the disk
> using light refraction through the head-disk gap.
>
> I'll bet Carly's HP never did that for anyone
> whose title started with anything less than VP.
That's exactly what they were talking about. HP was well known for such corporate oddities as never laying anyone off.
Heresy, y'know, if not treason,
John A