> Years ago I was invited to visit HP by the head of a department there. I was interested in possibly selling a company to them, so on the appointed day I hopped up the coast for a look. The man had forgotten, and was out of town - I was shown round by an embarrassed group of his managers, said a polite thank-you, and left.
> I had parked facing outwards, as I usually do so I can see what's there when I leave. When I got back to my car there was a little sign on the windscreen saying "At HP we park facing inwards."
> That day, I learned everything I needed to know about HP, and soon after sold my company to one of their competitors (who fell about laughing when I told them this story.) The HP department in question was in due course closed, HP itself has lurched from one managerial disaster to the next, and here's one more buffoon with an MBA, putting one more nail into the coffin.
I understand that when IBM visited Digital Research the head guy was out flying his airplane. This left them with no operating system for the IBM-PC, so Bill Gates licensed QDOS from a friend then licensed "Quick and Dirty Operating System" to IBM as MS-DOS.
Eventually Microsoft exceedd its QDOS license so its dveloper sued, settling for $50 million.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/24/hp_dress_code/
Nice story in the comments: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/07/24/hp_dress_...
> Years ago I was invited to visit HP by the head of a department there. I was interested in possibly selling a company to them, so on the appointed day I hopped up the coast for a look. The man had forgotten, and was out of town - I was shown round by an embarrassed group of his managers, said a polite thank-you, and left.
> I had parked facing outwards, as I usually do so I can see what's there when I leave. When I got back to my car there was a little sign on the windscreen saying "At HP we park facing inwards."
> That day, I learned everything I needed to know about HP, and soon after sold my company to one of their competitors (who fell about laughing when I told them this story.) The HP department in question was in due course closed, HP itself has lurched from one managerial disaster to the next, and here's one more buffoon with an MBA, putting one more nail into the coffin.