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Gartner headquarters in Stamford

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. It was known as GartnerGroup until 2001.^[1]

Gartner is an information technology research and advisory company providing technology related insight. Research provided by Gartner is targeted at CIOs and senior IT leaders in industries that include government agencies, high-tech and telecom enterprises, professional services firms, and technology investors. Gartner clients include large corporations, government agencies, technology companies and the investment community. The company consists of Research, Executive Programs, Consulting and Events. Founded in 1979, Gartner has over 4,300 employees,^[2] including 1,200 in R&D.^[3]

Gartner uses hype cycles and Magic Quadrants for visualization of its market analysis results.

History[link]

The company was founded in 1979 by Gideon Gartner. Originally a private company, the Gartner Group was launched publicly in the 1980s, then acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi, a London-based advertising agency, and then acquired in 1990 by some of its executives, with funding from Bain Capital and Dun & Bradstreet. In 2001 the name was simplified to Gartner.

In the course of its growth, Gartner has acquired numerous companies providing related services, including Real Decisions (which became Gartner Measurement, now part of Gartner's consulting division), and Gartner Dataquest (Gartner's market research firm). It has also acquired a number of direct competitors, including NewScience in the late 1990s, Meta Group in 2005 and AMR Research and Burton Group in early 2010.

The CEO is Gene Hall (since August 2004). Business performance under Hall's management has continued to grow since taking over from his predecessor Michael Fleisher (Michael D. Fleisher) who moved on to Warner Music Group in 2005.^[4]

Press coverage[link]

Gartner research has been mentioned by many news institutions, including Financial Times,^[5] The Wall Street Journal,^[6] and The New York Times.^[7] Gartner CIO Darko Hrelic has been interviewed by many IT-related publications, most recently CIO magazine.^[8]

See also[link]

	Connecticut portal
	Companies portal
	Information technology portal

• Automated Document Factory
• Soundview Technology Group, formerly Gartner Securities Corp.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gartner website

Eric Schmidt
Eric Schmidt at the 37th G8 summit in 2011.
Born	(1955-04-27) April 27, 1955 (age 57) Washington, D.C., United States
Residence	Atherton, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Princeton University University of California, Berkeley
Occupation	Software engineer, businessman
Salary	$1.25 million in 2012[1]
Net worth	US$ 6.9 billion (2012)[2]
Title	Executive Chairman of Google
Website
Google.com - Eric Schmidt

Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, businessman and the current executive chairman of Google.^[3] From 2001 to 2011, he served as the chief executive of Google.

Additionally, Schmidt was a former member on the board of directors for Apple Inc. and sat on the boards of trustees for both Carnegie Mellon University and Princeton University.^[4][5][6]

Along with Mike Lesk, Schmidt co-authored the lex analysis software program for the Unix computer operating system.

Biography[link]

Schmidt was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. After graduating from Yorktown High School,^[7] Schmidt attended Princeton University where he earned a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1976.^[8] At the University of California, Berkeley, he earned an MS in 1979 for designing and implementing a network linking the campus computer center, the CS and the EECS departments,^[9] and a PhD in 1982 in EECS with a dissertation about the problems of managing distributed software development and tools for solving these problems.^[10] He was joint author of lex (a lexical analyzer and an important tool for compiler construction). He taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business as a part time professor.^[11]

Schmidt and his wife Wendy lived in Atherton, California in 1999.^[12] In 2011, he was reported to be dating Lisa Shields, a communications executive for the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based foreign policy think tank.^[13].

He was on the list of ARTnews 200 top art collectors in 2008.^[14]

He is also a member of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011 Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland.^[15][16]

The Eric Schmidt Family Foundation[link]

The Eric Schmidt Family Foundation addresses issues of sustainability and the responsible use of natural resources. Wendy and Eric Schmidt, working with Heart Howerton, a San Francisco architectural firm that specializes in large-scale land use, have inaugurated several projects on the island of Nantucket that seek to sustain the unique character of the island, and to minimize the impact of seasonal visitation on the island's core community. Wendy Schmidt offered the prize purse of the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE, a challenge award for efficient capturing of crude oil from seawater motivated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.^[17]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Early in his career, Schmidt held a series of technical positions with IT companies, Byzromotti Design, including Bell Labs, Zilog and Xerox’s famed Palo Alto Research Cente (PARC).

From Sun to Google[link]

Schmidt joined Sun Microsystems in 1983 as its first software manager. He rose to become director of software engineering, vice president and general manager of the software products division, vice president of the general systems group, and president of Sun Technology Enterprises.^[18]

During his time at Sun he was the butt of two notable April Fool's Day pranks. In the first his office was taken apart and rebuilt on a platform in the middle of a pond complete with working phone. The next year a working Volkswagen Bug was taken apart and re-assembled in his office.

In April 1997, he became CEO and chairman of the board of Novell. Schmidt left Novell after the acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin interviewed Schmidt. Impressed by him,^[19] they recruited Schmidt to run their company in 2001 under the guidance of venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz.

Google[link]

Schmidt joined Google's board of directors as chairman in March 2001 and became the company's CEO in August 2001. At Google, Schmidt shared responsibility for Google's daily operations with founders Page and Brin. As indicated by page 29 of Google's 2004 S-1 Filing^[20] Schmidt, Page, and Brin ran Google as a triumvirate. Schmidt had legal responsibilities typically assigned to the CEO of a public company and focused on management of the vice presidents and the sales organization.

According to Google's website, Schmidt also focuses on "building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company and on ensuring that quality remains high while product development cycle times are kept to a minimum."^[21]

In 2007, PC World ranked Schmidt as the first on the list of the 50 most important people on the web, along with Google co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.^[22]

In 2009, Schmidt was considered one of the "TopGun CEOs" by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency.^[23][24]

On January 20, 2011, Google announced that Schmidt would step down as CEO of Google, but continue as the executive chairman of the company, and act as an adviser to co-founders Page and Brin. Page replaced Schmidt as CEO on April 4, 2011. ^[25]

The 2011 book In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy claims that in 2001, Schmidt requested that a political donation he made be removed from Google search results. The request was not fulfilled. Schmidt has denied this ever occurred.^[26]

Apple[link]

Schmidt was elected to Apple's board of directors on August 28, 2006.^[27] On August 3, 2009, it was announced that Schmidt would resign from the board of directors at Apple due to conflicts of interest amid the growing competition between Google and Apple.^[4]

President Barack Obama[link]

Schmidt was a campaign advisor and major donor to Barack Obama, and when he announced he was leaving that perch, he planned to remain at the forefront of Google’s government relations team. Obama has even considered him for Commerce Secretary.^[28] Schmidt was an informal advisor to the Obama presidential campaign and began campaigning the week of October 19, 2008, on behalf of the candidate.^[29] He had been mentioned as a possible candidate for the chief technology officer position which Obama created in his administration.^[30] After Obama won, Schmidt was a member of President Obama's transition advisory board. He proposed that the easiest way to solve all of the problems of the United States at once, at least in the domestic policy, is by a stimulus program that rewards renewable energy and, over time, attempts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.^[31] He has since become a new member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology PCAST.^[32]

New America Foundation[link]

The New America Foundation is a non-profit public policy institute and think tank, founded in 1999. Schmidt is the current chairman of the board of directors. He succeeded founding chairman James Fallows in 2008.^[33]

Innovation Endeavors[link]

Founded in 2010 by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Dror Berman, Innovation Endeavors is an early stage venture fund focused on advancing the world by providing high-impact entrepreneurs with the capital, coaching and network to build game-changing ventures. Innovation Endeavors has invested in more than 30 companies around the world in various industries. The firm is based in Palo Alto, USA. ^[34]

Compensation[link]

Upon being hired at Google, Eric Schmidt was paid a salary of $250,000, and an annual performance bonus. He was granted 14,331,703 shares of class B common stock at 30 cents per share, and 426,892 shares of Series C preferred stock at purchase price of $2.34.^[35]

Schmidt and the Google founders agreed to a base salary of $1 in 2004 (which continued through 2010), with other compensation of $557,465 in 2006,^[36] $508,763 in 2008 and $243,661 in 2009. He did not receive any additional stock, or options in 2009 or 2010.^[37][38] Most of his compensation was for "personal security" and charters of private aircraft.^[38] Schmidt is one of the few people who became billionaires (in United States dollars) based on stock options received as an employee in a corporation of which he was neither the founder nor a relative of the founder.^[39] In its 2011 'World's Billionaires' list, Forbes ranked Schmidt as the 136th richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $7 billion.^[2] Google gave him $100 million in 2011 as a parting gift.^[40]

Views[link]

During an interview which aired on December 3, 2009, on the CNBC documentary "Inside the Mind of Google", Schmidt was asked, "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?" His reply was: "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that, that information could be made available to the authorities." ^[41][42] At the Techonomy conference on August 4, 2010, Schmidt expressed that technology is good, but he said that the only way to manage the challenges is "much greater transparency and no anonymity." Schmidt also stated that in an era of asymmetric threats, "true anonymity is too dangerous." ^[43]

In August 2010, Schmidt clarified his company's views on network neutrality: "I want to be clear what we mean by Net neutrality: What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. But it's okay to discriminate across different types, so you could prioritize voice over video, and there is general agreement with Verizon and Google on that issue."^[44]

According to PCWorld Schmidt also expressed the following sentiment: "if you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to fear" ^[45]

See also[link]

• List of billionaires
• 70/20/10 Model — business model advocated by Schmidt^[46]
• RechargeIT

References[link]

• "Google Boss Dates P.R. Beauty". New York Post. July 28, 2011. http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/google_boss_dates_beauty_nb2QK0SyBVOuJ4ZNlV5gCP. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eric E. Schmidt

• Eric Schmidt on Google+
• Eric Schmidt on Twitter
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Eric Schmidt on Charlie Rose
• Eric Schmidt at the Internet Movie Database
• Eric Schmidt collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Eric Schmidt collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Eric Schmidt collected news and commentary at The Wall Street Journal

Speeches

• Eric Schmidt and Larry Page speaking at Stanford (May 1, 2002)
• Eric Schmidt talks about innovation on Executive Talks, November 2006
• Schmidt-ceo-of-google.html Eric Schmidt interview by iinnovate, March 2007^{[dead link]}
• YouTube: Eric Schmidt at the Seoul Digital Forum. (2007.06.05)
• Eric Schmidt speaks as part of NASA 50 years Lecture Series, January 17, 2008
• Mobile World Congress 2010 Keynote: Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google(Feb 2010)
• iTunes: Google making of a modern company.^[when?]

Articles

• CNET: Google balances privacy, reach (July 14, 2005), which uses Eric Schmidt as an example of the personal information held by Google.
• Princeton University Board of Trustees^{[dead link]}

Meg Whitman
Whitman speaks at the Tech Museum in San Jose, CA, February 17, 2009
Born	Margaret Cushing Whitman (1956-08-04) August 4, 1956 (age 55) Cold Spring Harbor (Long Island), New York, U.S.[1]
Residence	Atherton, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Princeton University (A.B.) Harvard Business School (M.B.A.)
Occupation	President and CEO of Hewlett-Packard
Political party	Republican
Religion	Presbyterian[2]
Spouse	Griffith Rutherford Harsh IV

Margaret Cushing "Meg" Whitman (born August 4, 1956) is an American business executive. She is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard.^[3] A native of Long Island, New York, she is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School. Whitman served as an executive in The Walt Disney Company where she was vice president of strategic planning throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s, she served as an executive for Procter & Gamble and Hasbro. Whitman served as President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from 1998 to 2008. During her ten years with the company, she oversaw expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue.

In February 2009, Whitman announced her candidacy for Governor of California, becoming the third woman in a twenty year period to run for the office. She won the Republican primary in June 2010. The fourth wealthiest woman in the state of California with a net worth of $1.3 billion in 2010,^[4] she spent more of her own money on the race than any other political candidate spent on a single election in American history,^[5][6] spending $144 million total of her own fortune and $178.5 million including donors.^[7] Whitman lost to Jerry Brown in the November 2 election.^[8]

Early life and education[link]

Whitman was born in Long Island, New York, the daughter of Margaret Cushing (née Goodhue) and Hendricks Hallett Whitman, Jr.^[9][10][11] Her patrilineal great-great-great-grandfather, Elnathan Whitman, was a member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Through her father, she is also a great-great-granddaughter of U.S. Senator Charles B. Farwell, of Illinois.^[12] On her mother's side, she is a great-granddaughter of historian and jurist Munroe Smith and a great-great-granddaughter of general Henry S. Huidekoper.^[12] Her paternal grandmother, born Adeladie Chatfield-Taylor, was the sister of economist Wayne Chatfield-Taylor.^[12]

Whitman attended Cold Spring Harbor High School in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, graduating after three years in 1974. In her memoirs, she says she was in the top ten of her class.^[13] She had wanted to be a doctor, so she studied math and science at Princeton University.^[14] However, after spending a summer selling advertisements for a magazine, she switched to studying economics,^[15] earning a B.A. with honors in 1977. Whitman then obtained an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1979.^[16][17]

Whitman is married to Griffith Harsh IV, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University Medical Center.^[18] They have two sons. She has lived in Atherton, California, since March 1998. Whitman College, a residential college completed in 2007 at Princeton University, is named after Meg Whitman following her $30 million donation.

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Beginning her career in 1979 as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, Whitman later moved on to work as a consultant at Bain & Company's San Francisco office. She then rose through the ranks to achieve the position of senior Vice President.^[19]

Whitman became vice president of strategic planning at The Walt Disney Company in 1989. Two years later she joined the Stride Rite Corporation, before becoming president and CEO of Florists' Transworld Delivery in 1995.^[20]

As Hasbro's Playskool Division General Manager, she oversaw global management and marketing of two children's brands, Playskool and Mr. Potato Head starting in January 1997. She also imported the UK's children's television show Teletubbies into the U.S.^[21]

eBay[link]

Whitman joined eBay on March 1998, when it had 30 employees^[22] and revenues of approximately $4 million. During her time as CEO, the company grew to approximately 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue by 2008.^[23] Originally, when Whitman had joined eBay, she found the website as a simple black and white webpage with courier font. On her first day, the site crashed for eight hours.^[24] She believed the site to be confusing and began by building a new executive team.^[21] Whitman organized the company by splitting it into twenty-three business categories. She then assigned executives to each, including some 35,000 subcategories.^[25] In 2004, Whitman made several key changes in her management team. Jeff Gordon took over PayPal, Matt Bannick took control of international operations and Bill Cobb was placed in control of U.S. operations,^[26] which has the colorful U.S. logo, while each international site has unique branding.^[27]

eBay's logo.

Shortly after taking the company public, Whitman told how stock for the company would rise 80 points and fall 50 points in a single day. Soon after, Whitman received a call at her eBay office from Arthur Levitt, Jr., Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). She called in her general counsel and the two sat down and answered the line on speaker phone. Instead of any perceived negative reaction to stock volatility, Levitt was calling to ask about the company going public and was concerned about whether the SEC was customer-friendly. He also discussed his interest in collectible Depression era glass, post 1929.^[28]

During Whitman's tenure as CEO, eBay completed the purchase of Skype for $4.1B in cash and stock in September 2005.^[29] In 2009, Skype was sold by eBay at a valuation of $2.75B.^[30] In 2011, Skype was bought by Microsoft for US$8.5B.^[31]

In June 2007, while preparing for an interview with Reuters, Whitman allegedly shoved her subordinate, communications employee Young Mi Kim. Of the incident, Whitman related, "In any high-pressure working environment, tensions can surface." Kim also stated, "Yes, we had an unfortunate incident, but we resolved it in a way that speaks well for her and for eBay." The matter was resolved after a $200,000 settlement.^[32][33]

Whitman resigned as CEO of eBay in November 2007, but remained on the board and served as an advisor to new CEO John Donahoe until late 2008. She was inducted into the U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2008. "I've said for some time that 10 years is roughly the right time to stay at the helm at a company like ours", she said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, adding that "it's time for new leadership, a new perspective and a new vision."^[34]

Whitman has received numerous awards and accolades for her work at eBay. On more than one occasion, she was named among the top five most powerful women by Fortune magazine.^[35] Harvard Business Review named her the eighth-best-performing CEO of the past decade^[36] and the Financial Times named her as one of the 50 faces that shaped the decade.^[37]

Boards[link]

Whitman also served on the board of directors of the eBay Foundation, Procter & Gamble and DreamWorks SKG, until early 2009.^[16][38] She was appointed to the board of Goldman Sachs in October 2001 and then resigned in December 2002, amidst controversy that she had received shares in several public offerings managed by Goldman Sachs^[39][40][41] (see Ties to Goldman Sachs for further detail). In March 2011, she was appointed a part-time special adviser at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.^[42]

She has also joined the boards of Zipcar^[43] and Teach For America, and re-joined the board of Procter & Gamble.^{[citation needed]}

Hewlett-Packard[link]

In January 2011, Whitman joined Hewlett-Packard's board of directors.^[44] She was named CEO on September 22, 2011.^[3] As well as renewing focus on HP’s Research & Development division, Whitman’s major decision during her first year as CEO has been to retain and recommit the firm to the PC business that her predecessor announced he was considering discarding. ^[45][46]

Charitable foundation[link]

Whitman founded a charitable foundation with husband Harsh on December 21, 2006, by donating to it 300,000 shares of eBay stock worth $9.4 million.^[47] By the end of its first year of operation, the Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C Whitman Charitable Foundation had $46 million in assets and has disbursed $125,000 to charitable causes. Most of the money disbursed went to the Environmental Defense Fund.^[48] In 2010, Warren Buffett asked Whitman to join the Giving Pledge in which billionaires would commit to donate half of their money to charity, and Whitman declined and said that she is committed to working with her foundation.^{[clarification needed][49]}

Political positions[link]

Whitman was a supporter of former Bain Capital founder and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's presidential campaign^[50] in 2008 and was on his National Finance Team.^[51] She was also listed as Finance co-chair of Romney's exploratory committee.^[52] However, after Romney stepped out of the race and endorsed McCain, Whitman joined McCain's presidential campaign as a national co-chair.^[53] McCain mentioned Whitman as a possible Secretary of the Treasury during the second presidential debate in 2008.^[54]

While running for governor, Whitman emphasized three major areas: job creation, reduced state government spending, and reform of the state's K-12 educational system. She argued that it is best to start only a few things and finish them, instead of starting a lot of things and finishing few of them.^[55]

Education[link]

In mid 2010, Whitman launched a Spanish-language television ad during the World Cup soccer games.^[56] One advertisement is quoted by the Los Angeles Times, stating that "the Latino kids attending public schools in California today will be tomorrow's doctors, engineers, businessmen, and teachers."^[57]

Environment[link]

Whitman said that if elected, on her first day^[58] she would have suspended AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, for a year to study its potential economic implications.^[59] AB32 requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020.^[60] At the state GOP Convention in March 2010, Whitman described California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's climate change bill as a "job-killer".^[61] Whitman opposed Proposition 23, which would delay the global warming law AB32 until California's unemployment falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for a year, stating that the proposition did not reasonably balance the need to protect jobs with the need to preserve environment.^[60]

On water issues, Whitman opposed further restrictions on water supply in the Central Valley and suggested President Obama should overturn a federal judge's ruling under provisions in the Endangered Species Act which reduced water supplies another 5% to 7%.^[62]

Illegal immigration[link]

Whitman said that Arizona's approach to illegal immigration with Arizona SB 1070 is wrong and that there are better ways to solve the problem.^[63] She said that, if she had lived in California in 1994, she would have voted against Proposition 187 concerning illegal immigrants.^[64] In an op-ed during her gubernatorial campaign, Whitman wrote, "Clearly, when examining our positions on immigration, there is very little over which Jerry Brown and I disagree".^[65]

She stated that illegal immigrant students should be prohibited from attending state-funded institutions of higher education.^[66][67] Currently, California state law permits this.^[68] In 2009, Whitman called for "a path to legalization" of illegal immigrants.^[64] In a 2010 interview on television station KTLA, Whitman said, "I want to hold employers accountable for hiring only documented workers."^[69]

Marriage, abortion, marijuana[link]

Whitman supported California's Proposition 8 in 2008, which reversed In re Marriage Cases and defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman in the state, but she is for civil unions and supports California's domestic partnership laws. Whitman believes that the same-sex marriages that took place before the ban should be recognized, and that gay and lesbian couples should be permitted to adopt children.^[70] Whitman has criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown for not defending Proposition 8 in the federal judicial system.^[71]

Whitman supports abortion rights.^[72]

Whitman has said that the legalization of marijuana is not what any law enforcement person would suggest for any reason and that "this is the worst idea [she has] ever seen."^[73]

Infrastructure[link]

Whitman does not support the proposed and partially voter-funded California High-Speed Rail project. In a letter to the Sacramento Bee^[74] Whitman's spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said: "Meg believes the state cannot afford the costs associated with high-speed rail due to our current fiscal crisis." Her opponent Jerry Brown is in favor of the project.

Whitman has made monetary donations to various candidates and PACs. While these have gone to both Republicans and Democrats, the donations are weighted to Republicans.^[75] Though Whitman has contributed to a few Democrats, including Senator Barbara Boxer; donating $4,000 to her campaign and serving on the "Friends of Boxer" committee in 2004, she donated more than $225,000.00 during the same period to Republicans, eBay's PAC and to Americans for a Republican Majority, the PAC of former Rep. Tom DeLay.^[76][77]

2010 campaign for California Governor[link]

Whitman's campaign sign for Governor of California

On February 10, 2009, Whitman announced she would run for governor of California in the 2010 election.^[78] Her campaign was largely self-funded. She spent more of her own money on this effort than any other self-funded political candidate in U.S. history^[6] and ultimately lost to Jerry Brown.

According to final reports, Whitman spent $144 million from her own personal funds.^[79] The Daily Caller said that her "penchant for throwing money around is well known in California political circles".^[80] The comment came in connection with the disclosure that her campaign had paid far above market rates for advertising on a conservative political blog. The blog's founder, addressing the issue of a possible attempt to influence the blog's content, said he had made clear to the Whitman campaign that "advertising and editorial are two very different things".^[80]

In June 2010, Whitman released a political ad, A Lifetime in Politics A Legacy of Failure,^[81] which seemingly contained one image of the FAIL Blog website, making it appear in the ad as if Jerry Brown had been the subject of one of the website's namesake "fails".^[82] Ben Huh, founder of the Cheezburger Network, of which failblog.org is a part, demanded an apology and the removal of the video, stating that the image was faked, and that the website is non-partisan and has never endorsed a particular political candidate or party.^[83]

On November 2, 2010, at 11:35 pm, Whitman conceded the election to her opponent, Jerry Brown, stating "We've come up a little short."^[84]

Voting record[link]

The Sacramento Bee reported that Whitman did not vote for 28 years, after reviewing her voting records in California.^[85][86] Whitman has described her voting record as "atrocious", apologized for it,^[86] and stated that she is happy to discuss the matter.^[87] Whitman answered questions about her record in September, replying, "And I think the reason is, is for many years, I wasn't as engaged in the political process and should have been."^[88]

Housekeeper controversy[link]

In September 2010, Nicky Diaz Santillan revealed that she was employed in the Whitman household as a housekeeper and nanny from 2000–2009 despite her status as an undocumented worker.^[89][90] Whitman's campaign released documents which she says Santillan provided prior to her employment including a driver's license, social security ID, and application.^[91] Santillan says Whitman knew she was undocumented, producing a 2003 letter from the Social Security Administration stating that her Social Security number did not match her name. Whitman initially stated that they "never received those letters",^[92] however, after a hand-written note on the document was shown, believed to be from Whitman's husband, they acknowledged they may have received it, but forgot.^[93][94] Santillan's attorney, Gloria Allred, states that Santillan was fired for the sake of the campaign.^[95] Whitman's campaign maintains that this is a political attack, stating that Allred is a Jerry Brown supporter.^[96][97] Brown, Allred and Santillan all deny this.^[98] Crystal Williams, Director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association stated "Not only is accepting the documents all the law required [Whitman] to do, but there's a counterbalancing anti-discrimination law that keeps her from probing further or demanding different documents."^[99] Others disagree; immigration lawyer Greg Siskind states Whitman was the employer, and the documents by law needed to be signed by her but were not, nor did they have a social security number on them; the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted that Whitman "hired her, paid her and had direct contact with her for nine years", so should have known her legal status.^[90][100] The L.A. Times noted that Latino voters were more likely interested that Whitman treated Santillan "like a piece of garbage" when the maid asked for help finding an immigration attorney, and Whitman allegedly stated "you don't know me and I don't know you".^[98][101]

Ties to Goldman Sachs[link]

Goldman Sachs, whose executives donated $100,000 to the Whitman campaign, manages a part of Whitman's fortune. As CEO of eBay, Whitman earned approximately $1.78 million resulting from a practice known as spinning whereby executives who did business with Goldman Sachs could reap profits by getting early deals before the public on hot IPOs offered by the bank. While Whitman was on Goldman’s board, she served on the compensation committee, which approved multi-million dollar bonus packages for then-CEO Henry Paulson and his top aides. Public domain documents reveal that Whitman has a multi-million dollar stake in 21 investment funds managed by Goldman.^[41] Given Goldman's major investments in California state finances, all these ties to Goldman Sachs led to considerable controversy during the gubernatorial campaign.^[41] In response, Whitman vowed to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest, and publicly stated that she would immediately sell her Goldman stock and put her Goldman-managed investments in a blind trust if elected governor.

See also[link]

• List of richest American politicians

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Whitman, Meg (2010). The Power of Many. San Francisco: Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-59121-0. 

External links[link]

• Meg Whitman for Governor official campaign site
• Biography, interest group ratings, public statements, vetoes and campaign finances at Project Vote Smart
• Campaign contributions at FollowTheMoney.org
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Billionaire Women We Envy, Forbes, March 6, 2007
• Is California Sold on Governor Meg Whitman?, Sheelah Kolhatkar, Time Magazine, December 14, 2009
• Meg Whitman Celebrates Gubernatorial Nomination with husband Dr. Griffith Harsh, Vitals, June 9, 2010