Ann Arbor, Michigan, was
the birthplace of William Hewlett and David Packard. William Hewlett and his
family relocated to San Francisco in the mid-1913s. After his father was
awarded a professor post at Stanford Medical School despite his severe dyslexia
Hewlett had a very unsuccessful early academic career as he had a hard time
with written assignments. On the other hand his illness led him to develop
exceptional memorization and logical skills that made him excel in areas of
mathematics and science. These skills helped kila gain entry into Stanford
University in 1930.
On September 7, 1912, David
Packard was born in Pueblo, Colorado, at the same time as Healdsburg. At an
impressively young age, Packard shown an interest in science and electricity
and he shocked as parents and teachers by building his first radio in elementary
school.
Packard enrolled at
Stanford as an electrical engineering student after graduating from a local
public high school. The same year as Hulu a Stanford Hewlett and Packard
pursued their interest in science and engineering and coincidentally both
enrolled in Stanford's highly acclaimed electronics class which at the time was
known as radio engineering.
Both ardent oarsmen with an
intense curiosity with electronics, the two young men immediately became
friends and spent many weekends camping together and After spending time
fishing in the Colorado mountains, the two friends enrolled in undergraduate
engineering classes taught by Professor Fred Terman, a renowned engineering
professor at Stanford.
One day, Termina
recommended to his two brightest pupils that they create their own firm one
day, and Hewlett and Packard agreed. Fred Terman built the world's top
electrical engineering department while encouraging his own students to do the
same. Sure enough, in the year 1939, they didHewlett and Packard, with the
assistance of their professor and mentor Fred Terman, founded their own firm
with a $538 initial investment and following the famous coin flip to determine
whether the business would be known as Hewlett-Packard or Patrick Hewlett
After establishing HP,
Hewlett and Packard began to investigate the intersection of engineering
science and commerce. The two friends worked hours every day attempting to come
up with novel items to market and discovered their first big discovery in the
winter of 1939 when they created an audio oscillator which they named the HP
208 audio oscillators were devices that generated one frequency of sound at a
time and could be used for a variety of things mainly for testing sound
equipment.
However, they were an exceedingly
complicated blend that was prone to restoring shin to solve this problem.
Sulzer devised an audio oscillator that used a tiny light bulb to produce a
relatively consistent amount of sound and frequency this innovation
revolutionized the audio oscillator industry and HP was able to produce their
oscillators at a remarkable price of 5440.
when the average price of
an oscillator was six hundred dollars soon after the release of the HP 200.
Hewlett and Packard struck gold when Walt Disney recognized a huge benefit to
their product and gave HP its first big purchase with an order of 8 audio
oscillators to be used at newest film Fantasia. Furthermore with the outbreak
of World War two in 1939 and america's entry 1941 the US government developed a
heavy demand for HP's audio oscillators which were needed to test military
equipment what began as a trickle of orders turned into a stream than a flood
which boosted company's sales to nearly 1 million dollars.
By the end of the war in
1943, HP had developed into a significant firm known throughout the United
States, with new production sites and more than 200 employees even after this
initial success Hewlett and Packard continued to explore the possibilities of
innovation in 1971.
That would impact her
challenge their co-workers to create a pocket-sized scientific calculator
they'll challenged his engineers to build this thing and make it the size of
his shirt pocket that was kind of “I don't think we can possibly do that by the
year in 1972”. However the engineers at HP with the help of Hewlett and Packard
had succeeded and presented to their bosses the HP 35 despite its high cost the
HP 35 turned out to be so popular that HP couldn't make them fast enough by
this time HP sales were skyrocketing and the company has certainly become the
next biggest IT company in America but as their history shows us Hewlett and
Packard were not only explorers of innovation but also explores of new styles
of company management that revolutionized how companies were run in the late
20th century.
The norm of company
management at the time was one of the extreme rigidity and strictness boss has
kept the type watching their employees and basic elements of trust and autonomy
were rarely found inside the office seeing no room for creativity and
innovation under such a harsh system Hewlett and Packard wish to create an
optimal work environment where employees could freely voice their opinions
without fear of being punished and at the end of the research the HP way was
born which encompassed the unique ways in which HP was run and managed the
first aspect of the HP way was a company management style pioneered by Hewlett
and Packard called management by walking around. Under this type of management
the boss would simply wander around the office and answer any questions or
concerns from the employees furthermore the employers would give their ultimate
trust and autonomy to their employees to finish their tasks this was a
revolutionary style of company management as no other company at the time
provided such freedom to its employees the essence of the HP way top management
sets the overall objective and then gets out of the way and lets the people do
it if the first aspect of the HP way was providing employees with freedom and
autonomy to completed tasks the second aspect was to facilitate the exchange of
ideas and words within the HP Empire at all levels of the company structure.
To achieve this Hewlett and
Packard implemented an open-door policy which included many initiatives like no
walls or doors and offices addressing everyone by their first names and regular
parties for employees to socialize with each other and their bosses such
policies combined with Hewlett and Packard genuine respect for employees turned
HP into more of a family than a company and within the HP family all employees
were willing to their minds and everyone including the managers and CEOs were
as willing to hear everyone's voices “I believe it's very important” but people
have some part in making the decisions that they're going to be involved with
and thanks to this policy the exchange of ideas in words have never been easier
at HP and it allowed the company to quickly expand and grow to become one of
the most influential and prosperous companies of the 20th century and that HP
globalised it became recognized worldwide as a company that truly respects his
employees and numerous companies and corporations around the world ranging from
Samsung to Apple adopt the hp way HP is known to almost be the best employer in
the early days.
They has a very strong
culture as in the trust on the employee is very high what I started out as a
promise between to Stanford colleagues to create their own startup led to the
creation of a hundred billion dollar company from printers to digital cameras
to tablet computers Hewlett-Packard today offers hundreds of high-tech products
that bring convenience and joy to its customers furthermore by teaching HP
employees the basics of entrepreneurship and fundamentals of the HP way Hewlett
and Packard sold way for the creation of Silicon Valley as many of these bright
employees left HP and founded their own companies by seeding the valley with
some of the greatest talents William Hewlett and David Packard undoubtedly
contributed to the development of America's IT sector as we know it today.
Conclusion:
HP's net worth is $30.33
billion as of November 25, 2022. HP's success is dependent on its capacity to
adapt. With a combined total addressable market of more than $500 billion, HP
is a global leader in the personal systems and printing sectors.