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Max the Magnificent
I love hearing stories like this - thanks for sharing. I only wish I could have ...
one_armed_bandit
I had HP as a client in the mid-90's. One of the guys I worked with told about ...
Book Review: Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company by Michael S. Malone
Clive Maxfield
3/26/2011 12:29 PM EDT
I don’t know if younger engineers realize how great was the esteem in which the Hewlett-Packard (HP) company was held in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Even though I never worked for HP myself, I remember hearing things like the fact that members of the HP sales force were instructed to act as advocates for their customers to make sure that problems got solved and things got done.
Actually, I do have one HP story of my own. In the early 1980s, a couple of years after I’d graduated with my degree, I was working for a very small company (I was the sixth person to join, and I arrived the day after the desks and chairs, so everyone else said that I was really lucky because for weeks they had been working sitting on the floor).
Anyway, I was reading a technical article about Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRCs) in a print magazine (do you remember the good old days before the Internet?) and I saw a reference to another article on Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs) that had appeared in an internal HP publication several years earlier.
So I called directory assistance and asked for the nearest HP office. When the receptionist at HP answered I explained what I was looking for and she said that she would have to hand me over to someone else. So I was put on hold listening to music for a few seconds. When I was passed over to the technical support folks, one thing that really impressed me was the fact that the receptionist had already briefed them, so I didn’t have to explain everything all over again. Whoever I ended up talking to said that they would look into it and get back to me.
Two days later a big package arrived from the Netherlands. In it was a photocopy of the original article I had requested, a telephone-book-sized catalog of all of HP’s products, and a hand-written letter apologizing for the delay (what delay?). The letter said that they were sorry, but it had taken them some time to track down a copy of that old internal publication. And all of this for little old me – the most junior of junior engineers – color me impressed!
Even after all of this, all I really knew about HP was that HP stood for Hewlett-Packard. I didn’t know anything about the founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard themselves or the tale of how they formed their company. And then, a few months ago as I pen these words, someone recommended that I read Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company. So I did, and it was great.
I really should have written this review before, but you know how it is – there’s always something else to do. The end result is that I’m writing this review from memory, because ever since I finished the book it’s been on permanent loan to various family members and friends.
In some ways this is a strange book. It’s not just a biography of Bill and Dave because it’s also a reasonably comprehensive history of the company. Contra-wise, it’s not simply a history of HP, because entwined throughout are biographies of Bill and Dave.
We start off being introduced to Bill and Dave in their childhood years and see how they grow into young men and form HP as a two-men-in-a-garage operation. Then we follow them as HP grows from strength-to-strength to become a multinational giant.
There are so many interesting things about this story that I really don’t know where to start. For example, Bill and Dave had a rule that the company storerooms would be left unlocked so that engineers could access any parts and equipment they needed to experiment with at any time of the day and night and over the weekends. One night when Bill (or Dave – I can’t recall which one) found a storeroom that had been locked by a new manager, he cut the padlock off with a pair of bolt-cutters and left a note that the room was to remain always open.
Bill and Dave also instigated something called “Managing by walking around,” which basically meant that they expected their managers to wander around talking to everyone so as to ensure that they knew what their people needed and also that the junior members of staff had a way to pass thoughts and ideas up the chain of command.
The really impressive thing is the way in which Bill and Dave managed to re-invent both themselves and the company as it grew in size and complexity. I was also amazed to discover that HP was one of the first high-tech companies to instigate Flextime, and stock offerings for employees, and all sorts of other things like this.
When a mini-recession came, rather than letting employees go like other companies, HP instead persuaded everyone to take every second Friday off along with a corresponding 10% cut in salary. In addition to guaranteeing the loyalty of the workers, this meant that at the end of the recession HP had a full complement of staff and were ready to take full advantage of the expanding market.
Although the majority of the book is devoted to the glory days of HP, these is some mention of what happened after Bill and Dave eventually stepped down; the subsequent leadership of John Young and Lew Platt; and the disastrous years under Carly Fiorina.
One thing that really comes out of all of this is the fact that – in addition to creating HP – Bill and Dave played a large part in starting the Silicon Valley we know and love today and creating many of its traditions and institutions. Also of interest is discovering what happened to Bill and Dave after they left HP and the various charities and foundations to which they devoted their time and money.
The bottom line is that this is a really good book that will be of interest to anyone involved in electronics and computers, and that should be required reading for anyone in a management position.
Actually, I do have one HP story of my own. In the early 1980s, a couple of years after I’d graduated with my degree, I was working for a very small company (I was the sixth person to join, and I arrived the day after the desks and chairs, so everyone else said that I was really lucky because for weeks they had been working sitting on the floor).
Anyway, I was reading a technical article about Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRCs) in a print magazine (do you remember the good old days before the Internet?) and I saw a reference to another article on Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs) that had appeared in an internal HP publication several years earlier.
So I called directory assistance and asked for the nearest HP office. When the receptionist at HP answered I explained what I was looking for and she said that she would have to hand me over to someone else. So I was put on hold listening to music for a few seconds. When I was passed over to the technical support folks, one thing that really impressed me was the fact that the receptionist had already briefed them, so I didn’t have to explain everything all over again. Whoever I ended up talking to said that they would look into it and get back to me.
Two days later a big package arrived from the Netherlands. In it was a photocopy of the original article I had requested, a telephone-book-sized catalog of all of HP’s products, and a hand-written letter apologizing for the delay (what delay?). The letter said that they were sorry, but it had taken them some time to track down a copy of that old internal publication. And all of this for little old me – the most junior of junior engineers – color me impressed!
Even after all of this, all I really knew about HP was that HP stood for Hewlett-Packard. I didn’t know anything about the founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard themselves or the tale of how they formed their company. And then, a few months ago as I pen these words, someone recommended that I read Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company. So I did, and it was great.I really should have written this review before, but you know how it is – there’s always something else to do. The end result is that I’m writing this review from memory, because ever since I finished the book it’s been on permanent loan to various family members and friends.
In some ways this is a strange book. It’s not just a biography of Bill and Dave because it’s also a reasonably comprehensive history of the company. Contra-wise, it’s not simply a history of HP, because entwined throughout are biographies of Bill and Dave.
We start off being introduced to Bill and Dave in their childhood years and see how they grow into young men and form HP as a two-men-in-a-garage operation. Then we follow them as HP grows from strength-to-strength to become a multinational giant.
There are so many interesting things about this story that I really don’t know where to start. For example, Bill and Dave had a rule that the company storerooms would be left unlocked so that engineers could access any parts and equipment they needed to experiment with at any time of the day and night and over the weekends. One night when Bill (or Dave – I can’t recall which one) found a storeroom that had been locked by a new manager, he cut the padlock off with a pair of bolt-cutters and left a note that the room was to remain always open.
Bill and Dave also instigated something called “Managing by walking around,” which basically meant that they expected their managers to wander around talking to everyone so as to ensure that they knew what their people needed and also that the junior members of staff had a way to pass thoughts and ideas up the chain of command.
The really impressive thing is the way in which Bill and Dave managed to re-invent both themselves and the company as it grew in size and complexity. I was also amazed to discover that HP was one of the first high-tech companies to instigate Flextime, and stock offerings for employees, and all sorts of other things like this.
When a mini-recession came, rather than letting employees go like other companies, HP instead persuaded everyone to take every second Friday off along with a corresponding 10% cut in salary. In addition to guaranteeing the loyalty of the workers, this meant that at the end of the recession HP had a full complement of staff and were ready to take full advantage of the expanding market.
Although the majority of the book is devoted to the glory days of HP, these is some mention of what happened after Bill and Dave eventually stepped down; the subsequent leadership of John Young and Lew Platt; and the disastrous years under Carly Fiorina.
One thing that really comes out of all of this is the fact that – in addition to creating HP – Bill and Dave played a large part in starting the Silicon Valley we know and love today and creating many of its traditions and institutions. Also of interest is discovering what happened to Bill and Dave after they left HP and the various charities and foundations to which they devoted their time and money.
The bottom line is that this is a really good book that will be of interest to anyone involved in electronics and computers, and that should be required reading for anyone in a management position.
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Max the Magnificent
3/26/2011 12:41 PM EDT
Well, it's been a long time coming, but finally here's my answer to the person who originally recommended this book to me (see my original blog http://bit.ly/ecqQWl)
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zeeglen
3/26/2011 1:31 PM EDT
Many will the remember the "Carl & Jerry" series by John T. Frye in Popular Electronics magazine starting in 1954. Two fictional high school kids experimenting and constructing electronic circuits in their garage workshop and lab, similar to Bill's and Daves's beginnings. I wonder if by any chance Bill and Dave unknowingly inspired the Carl & Jerry stories.
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Max the Magnificent
3/26/2011 2:01 PM EDT
That's an interesting thought -- as you say, maybe Bill and Dave did inspire these cartoons (check out this Carl and Jerry site http://bit.ly/heFq9W)
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Brian Fuller2
3/28/2011 12:50 PM EDT
We lionize these gents and for good reason, but I have to wonder how their management style would have differed in today's environment--hit the quarterly numbers for Wall Street now. That's all that matters.
Something tells me they probably would have taken HP private again had that environment stifled them.
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David Ashton
3/29/2011 2:44 AM EDT
HP test equipment was always of the most amazing quality. Just shows what can be achieved without bean counters around. Have a look at
http://users.monash.edu.au/~ralphk/hp-counter.html
About a guy who retrieved a wet old HP counter of 1963 vintage from a dumpster and dried it out and it just worked. 50 MHz, all transistors, no ICs, nixie display, and could go up to 3 GHz (in 1963!) with plugins. I used to swear by the old HP RPL calculators too. Somehow "Agilent" doesn't have the same ring to it, though their equipment is also good gear.
I must read this book, sounds like a great read, thanks Max.
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mkr
3/29/2011 5:42 AM EDT
Interesting. Although english is not my first language, i've managed to go through 'The Soul of a New Machine' and it really got me hooked. I need to get my hands on this one too. It would be interesting to confront what it says abouth ' disastrous years under Carly Fiorina' with the 'Tough Choices. Memoir' by... Carly Fiorina.
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Max the Magnificent
3/29/2011 9:20 AM EDT
I loved "The Soul of a New Machine". I haven't read "Tough Choices" by Carly Fiorina and at the moment I have so many things on my "reading list" that I won;t get to thsi for ages.
If you read the "Bill and Dave" book, it would be great if you could contrast the two perspectives for us.
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GOOD LIFE
4/12/2011 1:03 PM EDT
JOINED THE CO. IN 1962. CAME FROM WISCONSIN WHERE GOOD JOBS WERE HARD TO FIND. THOUGHT I WAS IN HEAVEN WHEN I LANDED AT HP. BILL AND DAVE(sometimes called pappy) WERE TWO OF THE FINEST GENTLEMEN IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD. THEY WERE AVAILABLE TO ANY EMPLOYEE WHO MAY HAVE THOUGHT THEY HAD A PROBLEM THAT COULD ONLY BE SOLVED BY DIRECTLY MEETING THEM FACE TO FACE. THEIR OFFICES WERE ALWAYS OPEN TO ALL EMPLOYEES. I AM NOW 80 YEARS OLD, RETIRED AFTER 30 YEARS AND LOOK BACK WITH GREAT SATISFACTION AT THE TIME I WAS HONORED TO BE WITH SUCH A WONDERFUL ORGANIZATION.
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lifewingmate
4/26/2011 12:34 AM EDT
Clive, Thank you for recommending this book. I've never heard of it. I'm interested in reading it as a story that confirms Malcom Gladwell's book, Outliers, The Story of Success. When you mentioned that they allowed the storerooms to be unlocked so that engineers could experiment, it immediately reminded me of the opportunity given to the young Bill Gates who was allowed to use a computer lab sponsored by a mom's organization at his school. These nuances in management style are what make the difference in building organizations that become scalable multi-national organizations. I wanted to add to the admiration of HP products as well. When I got my first job, I took on an extra internship to pay for my first HP laptop in 2005. I still use that laptop today!
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Max the Magnificent
4/26/2011 9:46 AM EDT
Hi there -- my Wife bought me Outliers by Malcom Gladwell -- since then I've read several of his books -- they are all extremely interesting and very well written -- I have them in the pile in my office waiting for some time to write reviews of them ...
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Analogical
4/29/2011 9:04 AM EDT
The best 17 years of my professional life were at HP: Good training, inspirational leaders, supportive co-workers. A shame it all fell apart after Bill & Dave left, but it just shows how remarkable they were individually and together. I recall an HP Divisional Review at which I, as R&D project manager for the 4951 Protocol Analyser, was grilled by Bill Hewlett- he, in two minutes, understood my product better than me!
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Hap1
5/20/2011 2:29 AM EDT
I started with HP straight out of the Army and Graduate School, and like Max reported, the 'first day' was only 90% salary because of the recession. Seemed like a "fair" arrangement to me, but I ended up working on the "Off Fridays" because Project Dates ddin't get changed. When Bill Hewlett 'found-out" he personally send 'coffee/dougnuts and lunches' to us, out of his own pocket. He would even 'drop bye' to 'personally thank us'. He 'turned' those days into a 'party'. Few realize that the 'every other Fri. only lasted for 3 months' then we went back on 100% work but 90% pay in order to 'build-up 8 paid days so we could take 2 weeks of at Christmas at the 90% pay.
I worked there 28 years and had the opportunity to personally work with both Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett on 'their pet projects'. I retired AFTER they did! If you would like to read "other stories about HP" see:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/memories.cgi
http://HP9825.com
http://www.home.agilent.com/upload/cmc_upload/secure/MinckHPNAR29.pdf
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sreaves22645
7/25/2011 3:34 PM EDT
In the book Bill and Dave it was also pointed out that many of the engineers and other employees came in and worked that Friday anyway, some on "G-Job" projects, many of which contributed to new products for HP so by the time the 80's hit they hit the ground running.
As far as how Bill and Dave would have run the company in today's climate I would suggest that you read the section of the book where Carly Fiorina goes to meet Bill Hewlett.
Bill had here completely figured out in a few seconds.
Bill and Dave always stood for what was right and fair. There is an account of Bill in a meeting where a mistake was made that cost HP big money and in a meeting he asked those responsible for the project what they learned from the mistake and left it at that.
I never worked for HP, but everytime I use an HP instrument I can feel the aura of their integrity.
Sam Reaves
W3OHM
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Brian Fuller2
7/25/2011 6:30 PM EDT
Sam, that's a great last line. Thanks for commenting!
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one_armed_bandit
8/5/2011 5:26 PM EDT
I had HP as a client in the mid-90's. One of the guys I worked with told about the time he was on a tight schedule - in at 8a, out at 11p. He would spend the first 30 minutes finding his oscope. One day, he left the scope where he could see it and worked later. An old guy came up and started wheeling the scope away. Greg got up and stopped the guy - he said "I don't mind you borrowing the oscope - it was company property - but can you return it here so I don't need to chase it down in the mornings?". The old guy apologized for his inconsideration, and said "Since you are obviously on a tight project, can you use a tech?". Greg said yes, and the old guy said he would be glad to be Greg's tech. Greg asked about the guy's manager, and was told that would not be a problem.
Greg said the guy was the best tech he had ever had.
About a month later, someone pulled Greg aside and asked "How in the world did you get Bill Hewlett to be your tech?"
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Max the Magnificent
8/5/2011 5:44 PM EDT
I love hearing stories like this - thanks for sharing. I only wish I could have met Bill and Dave myself when they were in their prime (actually it would be nice if I was in my prime also, but we've missed that boat [grin]).
OK, back to the plans for my Time Machine
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