The Big Lie: Spying, Scandal, and Ethical Collapse at Hewlett Packard at Dominant Systems Book Store

San Francisco Chronicle, July 18, 2010
"[A] gripping, well-sourced and illuminating book, "The Big Lie" [is] a gossipy and at times vulgar account of the battle of wills between Dunn and Tom Perkins, one of California's wealthiest venture capitalists. Think Tyra Banks meets "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell in a televised food fight A splendid account of the very flawed stars of HP's sideshow." Sacramento Book Review, June 30, 2010 “The book concludes by focusing on how some people will pay a high price to usher in a culture of openness in corporate governance. A captivating book; like reading a drama.” New York Times, August 14, 2010 “An authoritative account” Irish Times, August 29, 2010 “The Big Lie shines a light on the boardroom machinations that lead to bad decisions being made.” New York Journal of Books, September 2010
“Bianco’s reporting (and he’s done plenty of it at BusinessWeek) is complete, nasty, with plenty of villains, no heroes, and perhaps one victim… Read this alongside Jeffrey Pfeffer’s recent book, Power, and you will understand much of the dysfunction of Fortune 500 capitalism.”

Customer Reviews & Comments
Hewlett-Packard was THE iconic American company for sixty years for (1) Innovative Products; (2) High-Quality Products; (3) Incredible Loyalty by employees for company leadership; and (4) Unshakeable Ethics and Integrity with customers, vendors, and employees. HP under two outsider CEOs for the past decade has seemingly erased each of these iconic qualities. Attenuation, even destruction, of the first three is evident if we believe customers, analysts, or employee feedback on blogs and even HP's Voice of the Workforce surveys. This at a time that HP has grown via acquisition to become the largest high-tech firm on the planet, 20% larger by revenue than IBM or Samsung -- larger than Apple, Intel, and Cisco put together. Carly Fiorina gets the blame in most circles -- photogenic, self-absorbed, aggrandizing -- she 'broke the HP Way' according to many, and vitriol still runs deep in Silicon Valley about her leadership. But the main charge was that she angered employees and damaged profits. Her replacement, Mark Hurd, is seldom seen or heard from, but gets much Wall Street credit now that the company has 'righted' itself (Wall Street may hardly be the best judge, we might say in these times!). Anthony Bianco offers a stunning, well-researched perspective that adds a dimension not discussed nearly enough -- the desecration of the company's ethical and moral code. With a deft analysis from ex-Board member interviews and HP-filed public documents, Bianco shifts focus to the current CEO, and his role in the spying scandal called pretexting. In the process, the book does a hard-hitting job of tackling the role,importance, and impact any CEO can have, whether on a company's ethics, innovation, or customer and employee satisfaction. The result could and should be a clarion call for the HP Board, but sadly, Bianco's focus suggests that the HP Board has been monumentally dysfunctional as well, tracing back ironically for two decades to the revered founders. Tragicomic in some dimensions, Bianco's account of a seriously under-reported set of events demonstrates clearly that The HP Way is moribund if not dead, with current leadership much more culpable than has been hitherto claimed. Anecdotal support for this view has been mounting for the past three years, but Bianco provides solid credence for these views. The book often has a journalistic feel, seeking the sensational story, the barbed quip, or the innuendo from inferred evidence. Moreover, it trades heavily on the aggrieved perspective of the excommunicated Chairman of the Board, Pattie Dunn, while caricaturizing ex-Board members George Keyworth and Tom Perkins who provided key interviews for Bianco. On the other hand, Bianco correctly assesses the situation as one that only a few people designed and defined -- so wider interviews, unless with those at HP disinclined to talk, would serve no useful purpose. When a company culture, established over decades, is abrogated by the errant leadership of a few, a question may be "is it retrievable?" The answer for HP according to Bianco lies well in the future, rather than with the present team. This is a courageous book, not likely to be endorsed by the HP team today. Time will tell whether this is a case of "where there's smoke, there's likely a fire". Unfortunately, from Tiger Woods and Enron and WorldCom leadership, to Lehman Brothers and other Wall Street 'leaders', as Bianco points out on page 2, we are getting accustomed to leaders being less than they seem. True at HP now?

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