Carly Fiorina is the most admired-and most vilified-woman in corporate America. Recruited in 1999 to run Hewlett-Packard, the legendary company that helped invent Silicon Valley, she promised big changes from the moment she arrived. She was a marketing whiz at a company that worshipped engineers, an instant celebrity in a culture that preached modesty, and a woman in one of the most sexist industries.

No wonder the purists hated her. Yet for twenty years, she had consistently won over those who doubted her. And at HP she believed she could connect two hostile cultures, remaking the high-tech pioneer while staying true to the HP way, the old-fashioned values of company founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard. Her zesty new style would be "perfect enough."

Could Carly make it? Her boosters and enemies asked that question with nail-biting intensity. In 2001, she entered an epic struggle with Walter Hewlett, son of HP’s late cofounder, over the company’s destiny and her stunning plan to merge with archrival Compaq. For months Fiorina and Hewlett battled in the boardroom, in the media, and, ultimately, in court. They couldn’t stop until one side destroyed the other.

In this fascinating human drama, George Anders draws on unmatched sources to probe beyond the headlines. He reveals Fiorina to be both braver and more vulnerable than outsiders ever realized. And he discloses the role played by a powerful recluse in Idaho: the only person at HP who could bridge the old era and the new.