Bill & Dave by Michael S. Malone

Author:Michael S. Malone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Hewlett, William R., Packard, David, -- 1912-, Hewlett-Packard Company -- History., Microelectronics industry -- United States -- History., Computer industry -- United States -- History., Electronics engineers -- United States -- Biography., Businesspeople -- United States -- Biography.
Publisher: Portfolio
Published: 2007-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

general manager—the first of the new generation of HP managers to hold that title.

There, he more than lived up to Bill and Dave's expectations. Indeed, he became a corporate superstar. Minck, who reported directly to Young during this period, recounted:

Dave and Bill were "intuitive" managers who grew into greatness by sheer common sense and humanity. John [by comparison] brought his value to HP in a well-organized approach to professional management. It was his establishment of the Microwave divisions new-product creation process that made that division grow from about $22 million in 1964 to $75 million plus in 1969. The normal growth for HP Test & Measurement in those days averaged 15 percent per year, or doubling every 5 years. John more than tripled our sales revenues in 5 years. 39

Not surprisingly, in 1969, when Hewlett and Packard embarked on the re-centralization of the company, John Young, alone among his age cohort, was promoted to group vice president—and was already being spoken of as Bill and Dave's heir apparent. Young himself set about assembling the brightest talent from the new generation—Paul Ely, Dick Hackborn, and Ned Barnholt among others—and made them his lieutenants. This so-called Microwave Mafia would ultimately run most of Hewlett-Packard.

The Ultimate Entrepreneurs

As the divisional, then group, layers of management moved into position at HP during the 1960s, the role of Bill and Dave in the company inevitably changed as well.

They were beginning now to enter uncharted territory. Only a few men in American business history had taken a company from the very first day of its founding all of the way through going public, onto the Fortune 500, and then into global competition. Most entrepreneurs, then and now, fall to the wayside long before this point, the victim of impatient boards, personality flaws, or their own unwillingness to change.

The history of Silicon Valley and the high-tech industry is filled with stories of brilliant entrepreneurs who founded great companies, then one day found themselves driven out of those firms because the maturing organizations could no longer deal with their mercurial, high-risk personalities. The most famous of these stories belongs to Al Shugart, who founded the disk

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