
The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company (1960) - Tomte
https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i-built-our-company-5634378
======
spinningslate
I worked for HP in the late 90s / early 2000s. Right around the time Agilent
was split off.

It was a remarkable place to work. "Bill and Dave" were household names: I was
really struck by how much of their vision and values had been embedded in the
firm's DNA. Quite amazing for a multi-national.

I remember the UK general manager coming to visit our site. He wasn't immune
to the usual entourage of hangers-on, but always insisted on going walkabout
on his own for an hour or so. Precisely so he knew what was actually happening
at the coal face, not the filtered and abstracted artefacts of managerial
reports. He stopped to speak to one of my colleagues - a recent graduate. The
grad had no idea who the manager was, and asked him politely to give him 10
minutes as he was waiting for a build to finish (1990s remember). Those of us
who knew the manager were aghast and assumed the grad would be in for a bit of
a tough time. But the GM just smiled and said "of course, hope it compiles
OK", went away, and came back later.

That moment has stuck with me throughout my career. I've sought to emulate
that level of humility and respect. Can't say I've always been successful, but
it remains inspirational.

~~~
lnsru
Your experience sounds like from some sci-fi book written by Isaac Asimov. My
reality looks way different: there was Vice President from USA checking the
German branch couple weeks ago. 3 days of management presentations full of
inaccurate information to show how excellent are we managing our projects. The
Vice President had absolutely no interest in the real projects in the labs.
Nobody does, project checklist and weekly hours reporting are only 2
interesting things. I am still dreaming experiencing management HP Way, but
it’s not happening. Current leaders are accountants and not technical leaders
anymore.

~~~
jjwhitaker
HP now is incredibly different from HP then. My dad was there for 38 years
before retiring, my mom as well before choosing to stay at home and support
the family once I hit 1st grade. Growing up most of our family friends were HP
employees and engineers (they were the 2nd largest employer in town). I
remember summer picnics meeting high up managers from all over the country.
From maybe 2004 to 2010 the culture and management style changed a lot
especially under Fiorina. Honestly, from everything I've seen and heard she
was the death knell of OG HP simply by crushing the free form engineering
spirit of R&D by streamlining and significantly cutting back research. She
made HP a lean machine that couldn't innovate and so the dream died.

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truth_be_told
Excellent! They were the true Titans of the Tech. industry. How i wish
"modern" tech companies followed this advice.

This passage in particular should be memorized by every "Manager".

 _Over the years we have developed the policy that it is important for the
supervisor to thoroughly know and understand the work of his group. A debate
on this has been carried on by management people for years. Some say you can
be a good manager without having the slightest idea of what you are trying to
manage, that the techniques of management are all important. There are many
organizations which work that way. I don 't argue that the job can't be done
that way but I do argue strongly that the best job can be done when the
manager or supervisor has a real and genuine understanding of his group's
work. I don't see how a person can even understand what proper standards are
and what performance is required unless he does understand in some detail the
very specific nature of the work he is trying to supervise. We have held
closely to this philosophy and we intend to continue to do so. We expect you
who are supervising to learn techniques of supervision and keep up to date. I
want to emphasize you can supervise best when you know a great deal about the
work you are supervising and when you know the techniques of supervision as
well._

~~~
Ididntdothis
That’s something I miss a lot in my company. When you go up one to two levels
management already has no understanding of what I and the people I work with
are working on and it doesn’t seem they are interested. They see their only
role as enforcing deadlines and budgets. I think a lot of better decisions
could be made if managers made an effort to understand what their underlings
are doing. Managers who don’t understand the work are very susceptible to
political games and manipulation.

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seanhunter
For people who are only familiar with the sad decline of this company, HP
computers used to be _great_.

I learnt to program on an HP-85a. At the time, my friends had ZX80s or ZX81s
with 1k of RAM. My HP-85a (my dad's really) had an insanely massive 32k. It
came with really great manuals which taught you to program in basic, a built-
in screen, magnetic tape drive and thermal printer and was fantastically
engineered in general.

The HP12c financial calculator is legendary. There are HP12c still running on
their original battery 30+ years after production (the original battery now no
longer permitted for non-military applications due to toxic chemicals and
what-not) and the legend goes that a zookeeper once accidentally fed one to a
hippo (he had been using it to calculate how much feed to give it or
something) had it travel through the whole digestive tract of the
aforementioned beast and had it still working. My two HP12cs have each been
running for 10+ years on their original batteries even though they are using
the inferior modern battery technology.

I could go on but you get the point.

~~~
jbay808
They also were a real leader in scientific and precision metrology equipment,
like interferometers.

~~~
Junk_Collector
They still are in a sense. That portion of the company is now called Keysight.

~~~
jbay808
I'm not sure if Keysight is doing any innovation anymore or just subsisting on
their legacy. (They also wouldn't answer my company's calls when we tried to
purchase equipment from them, which I generally take as sign of decline).

~~~
Junk_Collector
It probably depends on where you are and what level of equipment you are
looking at. All of their low end stuff goes through distributors which was
implemented in the bad old days of the 90's and just sort of carried over
peaking in the mid 2000's. Since the Agilent/Keysight split they seem to be
pulling stuff in house little bit by little bit and their support is improving
but you need to find out who your local sales manager actually is. If you are
in a low volume area like Arkansas, there may only be one for the state. If
you are in a busy area like California or Texas, there will probably be half a
dozen or more. In my experience they are getting better with support coverage,
but like all vendors will try to nickel and dime you for it. Their CEO has
made some noise about being a services company for growth so it will be
interesting to see where they go in that regard in the future.

On the high end technical side, they are absolutely killing it lately. They
have a new out of the box modular system for quantum computing, a new 100 GHz
bandwidth oscilloscope that has crazy good noise performance, and their new
portable microwave analyzer is a VNA and RTSA in one that works better than
many previous generation benchtop boxes but runs on a battery. Those were all
released this year.

~~~
jbay808
We were definitely looking for their top end systems. But you're probably
right, we might have just gotten lost in some tangled chain of distributor
responsibility.

I'm very relieved to hear that they're still innovating, actually. Thanks :)

------
sokoloff
Random HP praise:

I was working on a project Sunday that involved fairly precise current and
voltage measurements using an HP3458A benchtop meter. I was a little careless
and put about 4A through the current shunt (which is rated for only 1.25A). It
immediately failed open circuit, shutting down my circuit. I finished up the
work using a lesser quality meter and figured I was in for an annoying repair
task, at a minimum pulling the meter out and replacing a fuse in the back or,
worse, maybe having to take the cover off (and break the cal stickers).

Instead, the design is incredibly thoughtful and user-friendly, obviously
designed by someone who cared to think through how the device would actually
be used in the field and not just relentlessly “cost engineered”.

[https://youtu.be/sdyDUl5xYpE](https://youtu.be/sdyDUl5xYpE)

If I’d known, I could have replaced the fuse faster than going to get the
other meter.

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neilv
I've never worked at HP, but I recall this: "The day the HP Way died":
[https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/02/Mar/hpway.html](https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/02/Mar/hpway.html)

~~~
smcameron
Heh. I worked for Compaq in Houston when HP bought Compaq. I remember people
saying that the HP way was, "Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim.... " and the Compaq way
was, "Ready, Fire, Aim!"

~~~
neilv
Sometime before the merger, they were both great companies that did innovative
and high-quality things. It's sad they apparently went through some rough
times for a while.

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drewda
For those who want to relive the HP Way or learn about it for the first time,
I highly recommend:

"Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company" by
Michael S. Malone

[https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard-
Greatest/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard-
Greatest/dp/1591841526)

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ericalexander0
Strikes me as heavily influenced by Deming. Was he?

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dang
Url changed from [https://fs.blog/2016/05/the-hp-way-david-
packard/](https://fs.blog/2016/05/the-hp-way-david-packard/) to a URL that
appears to contain the complete text of the speech.

~~~
philpem
Following the links from that article -- Packard's "eleven simple rules for
getting along with others" is a pretty good read too.

[https://fs.blog/2013/09/dave-packards-11-simple-
rules/](https://fs.blog/2013/09/dave-packards-11-simple-rules/)

