#29 The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th.
He had neither Ellison's conspicuous consumption needs nor Gates' philanthropic impulses, nor the competitive urge to see how high on the forblifts he could get. Instead, his ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually. Building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed, a notch above people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. And the best way to achieve all of this was to return to Apple and reclaim his kingdom.
Welcome to Founders. This is my podcast about the biographies of entrepreneurs and founders. For every podcast, I read the life story of someone who created something special, and then I share some of the ideas that I found interesting from the book.
Now, what I just read to you is an excerpt from the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. And I wanted to start there today because of this idea that I've talked about on several podcasts before, and the idea that books are the original hyperlinks, that they can lead you from one idea to another idea or from one person to another person, allowing you to go deeper in whatever subject you're learning about. And today's podcast is an illustration of that idea. So I was introduced to David Packard because Steve Jobs' book that I read and also did a podcast on a few months ago, was referenced, that book referenced Bill Hewlett and David Packard a lot.
That piqued my curiosity, and when I went searching for books about them, I found David Packard's book, The HP Way. And that is the one I wanna talk to you about today.
So before we jump into this book, today's podcast is brought to you by Blinkist. Blinkist is an app that puts big ideas from the world's best non-fiction books in powerful little packs that you can read or listen to in just 15 minutes. So when I was thinking about how to describe Blinkist, the idea that stuck out most of my mind after using it is I would describe Blinkist this way. So what would happen if you hired a bunch of people to read non-fiction books for you and then distill the most important information into a 15 minute summary? Well, that's exactly what Blinkist has done and you can access their entire library of over 2200 plus non-fiction book summaries on your phone to either read or listen to. Over five million people have downloaded Blinkist. Blinkist's app has been nominated by Apple as one of the best in the app store. Blinkist has received the World Summit Award granted by the United Nation in the learning and education category, as well as a Google Material Design Award for brand expressiveness. So if you're interested in learning more about Blinkist, you can go to blinkist.com forward slash founders. That's blinkist.com forward slash founders. And you can get 20% off and start learning faster today.
Okay, so let's get into the book, The HP Way, How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard. So as I've mentioned a couple other times before, I've really been enjoying the autobiographies that some founders write because there's no fluff. And this is another example of that. This book is only about 190 pages, and he moves very rapidly through his life story and then spends the bulk of the book detailing his thinking around how to build a successful company. And let me read this one paragraph from the prologue. I think it's a good introduction of why I would recommend reading the book. And this is David Packard speaking. During the first few years of operating the Hewlett-Packard Company, Bill and I developed a way of doing things, a management style that included some features not common to management in those days. This became known as The HP Way. This book is the story of Bill Hewlett and me and the Hewlett-Packard Company, which we spent our lives building and operating. I'm just gonna jump right into a series of ideas that I highlighted and I found were really interesting.