For most people, the most memorable event coming out of yesterday’s CNN debate was the face-off between Donald Trump and Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.
For Apple fans, it was the news that Steve Jobs had once called Fiorina at home to offer his condolences on her losing her job at Hewlett-Packard.
Is there a better way to appeal to tech fans in a campaign than to name-drop Steve? Except offering everyone brand-new iPhones, of course.
The Jobs anecdote came when Trump criticized Fiorina’s tenure at H-P, during which the company suffered big losses, leading to her firing.
In response, Fiorina said:
“I have been very honest about this from the day it happened. When you challenge the status quo, you make enemies. I made a few. Steve Jobs told me that when he called me the day I was fired to say, ‘Hey, been there, done that twice.'”
Fiorina went on to say that, “When you lead and when you challenge the status quo, you make enemies,” before name-dropping Jobs again.
Before the comparisons with the late Apple co-founder get too much, however, it’s worth noting that under Fiorina, H-P stock collapsed amidst the dot-com bubble bursting and company’s disastrous merger with Compaq. In 2008, she was referred to as the “anti-Steve Jobs” by InfoWorld.
It’s a class move that Jobs phoned her personally to express his condolences, though. Given the astonishing second act Jobs had in his career, who wouldn’t want the legendary CEO of Apple to have given them a call after they received some bad news?
Unless that person happens to be the head of BlackBerry, and the bad news is that Apple is launching its own smartphone, that is!
Via: USA Today
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
6 responses to “Carly Fiorina got a call from Steve Jobs after getting fired”
Yep. I remember Carly – she laid off a TON of HP employees and sent their jobs to India, along with running the company into the ground and dragging Compaq down with them.
I had no sympathy for her when she got the boot from HP and consider her presidential candidacy a bigger joke than Trump’s.
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Her acquisition of Compaq was regrettable in hindsight. I would not necessary say Donald Trump is a better businessperson than Carly Florina. But that’s not the job they’re vying for anyway.
Do we think it is actually true that he called?
I don’t believe for a second that Jobs called Fiorina. He is known to have had no respect for the empty suits running the large tech companies, and as someone with no product or market vision/depth, Fiorina would most certainly have fallen in that category.
I call bullshit on her story too. And conveniently no way to verify it.