#291 David Packard (Founder of HP)

#291大卫·帕卡德(惠普创始人)

Founders

商务

2023-02-21

47 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

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

单集文稿 ...

  • David Packard rejected the idea that a company exists merely to maximize profits.

  • I think many people assume wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money, Packard said.

  • While this is an important result of a company's existence, we have to go deeper to find the real reason for our being.

  • Do our products offer something unique?

  • Are people's lives improved because of what we do?

  • If the answer to any of these questions is no, then Packard would deem HP a failure.

  • Most entrepreneurs pursue the question, how can I succeed?

  • From day one, Packard pursued a different question, what can we contribute?

  • As a result, HP attained extraordinary success.

  • This success, in turn, enabled them to invest more in making a contribution, which produced even greater success, which led to increased contribution, which created even greater success.

  • This virtuous cycle eventually enabled Packard and Hewlett to personally contribute at levels far beyond what they would have dared to imagine as young men.

  • In 1995, Packard attended a dinner at Stanford University.

  • The dean of engineering mentioned to Packard that he and Hewlett had donated, on a present value basis, as much to Stanford as Jane and Leland Stanford had given to fund the university.

  • Upon his death, Packard bequeathed nearly all of his $5.6 billion estate to charity.

  • But if you were to think of David Packard and the HP way as being all about benevolence and charity, you would be terribly mistaken.

  • Packard and Hewlett demanded performance, and if you could not deliver, HP held no place for you.

  • Customer satisfaction, second to none, is the only acceptable goal, admonished David Packard.

  • If you cannot lead your organization to achieve that goal, well, find somebody who can.

  • That is an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is David Packard's autobiography.

  • It is called the HP Way, how Bill Hewlett and I built our company.