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WSJ interviews Carly Fiorina

Yesterday’s The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Carly Fiorina. It’s more of the same - she emphasizes the importance of “execution” and constant focus on cost savings. And she lists HP’s 3 top priorites as “how to get more efficient and effective” at managing the cost structure, gaining greater share of wallet, and a new focus on growing by leveraging capabilities and skills to grow organically into new businesses (she cites move into digital entertainment as an example of this.) The mass layoffs are over, but HP will expand and contract as they increase focus on new areas of the business and shift away from less profitable areas.

For technology she has this to say:

I think that the tech industry is going to grow at two times growth [in U.S. gross domestic product]. It was a five-times-GDP-growth industry in the late 1990s, and that was unsustainable. Now we’ve entered a period where tech is fundamental. When something becomes fundamental it involves a more important and complex set of decisions, so growth slows. By the way, two times GDP is an OK growth industry. But it’s not what it used to be.

I think there are changes that are yet to occur. The software industry still has some consolidation to go. [So does] the communication-technology side.

Provacatively, she responded to questions about the recent departure of many of HP’s top players by saying:

‘ve retained the people we wanted to retain. I won’t say that below my direct reports there weren’t some losses that would have been better if they stayed. But in virtually every case, the reason people left is because they weren’t selected for a job they wanted. The reason they weren’t selected for the job they wanted is because we didn’t think they were the best candidate for the job.

That all may be true, but it seems a strange cultural thing that HP is unable to put them to use productively - even if they weren’t the best fit with one particular job.