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

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

Founders

Episode 29

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

David Senra is the host of Founders, where he studies history's greatest entrepreneurs. This is what he learned from reading The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard.

What I learned from reading The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard.

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[0:01] How Steve Jobs was inspired by David Packard

[1:00] Books are the original hyperlinks

[4:30] Profit is the measure of how well we work together

[9:00] HP's first product

[11:00] Podcasts before podcasts

[14:00] Many of the things I learned in this process were invaluable, and not available in business schools

[15:00] More businesses die from indigestion than starvation

[16:30] The importance of maintaining a narrow focus

[20:00] Growth from profit

[21:00] Lessons from the Great Depression = No long term debt

[26:30] A Maverick's persistence

[29:00] How to avoid layoffs in a recession

[30:20] Employees should outgrow you

[31:00] The perils of centralization

[35:00] Closing with optimism

A list of all the books featured on Founders Podcast

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

Introduction

"He had neither Ellison's conspicuous consumption needs nor Gates' philanthropic impulses nor the competitive urge to see how high on the Forbes list 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 this was to return to Apple and reclaim his kingdom."

Welcome to Founders, 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.

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