"I invested a lot of hours disassembling door locks and things like that. My mother just called it mischief."- William Hewlett, co-founder Hewlett-Packard
Bill Hewlett was co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, currently the largest technology company in the world. Hewlett had a difficult early childhood because of his dyslexia and loss of his father in his teens. What started out as a few hundred dollars and space in a garage would soon grow into a high technology company with offices in nearly every country in the world. Hewlett's accomplishments were not limited to technology, however. Some believe his greatest accomplishment was in creating a model for creative corporations today...
"...an egalitarian, decentralized system that came to be known as 'the HP Way'..."...one of the first all-company profit-sharing plans... gave shares to all employees... among the first to offer tuition assistance, flex time, and job sharing... Today, the behavior of the two founders remains a benchmark for business..."
Apparently Bill Hewlett was in favor of flexible hours and schedule-free Fridays to encourage creative thinking on the part of his engineering team.
From Bill and Dave (Michael Malone)
“...young Bill was a brilliant child, an indifferent student, and something of a hellion. He was constantly getting into fights –including one memorable occasion when he came home covered with a bottle of ink…young Bill too had a near brush with explosives ad morality-twice. On one occasion, he nearly killed himself with shrapnel after setting off a homemade grenade constructed from a brass doorknob stuffed with black powder…
At the age of 14, Bill Hewlett lost his father, a prominent Stanford professor, to a brain tumor, and his grandmother packed him, his mother and his sister up for 15 month stay in Europe where Bill was tutored at home. ..Hewlett had been “struggling desperately in school” because of dyslexia.
“He was a classic case: in English and history he struggled gamely, but inevitably failed. He simply couldn’t read the textbooks or keep up with his note-taking in class, so he had to rely entirely on his memory of the teacher’s words. By comparison, in chemistry, physics, and mathematics, Bill’s performance was nothing short of astonishing. This was particularly true when he was allowed to work with his hands. Among other electrical items, he built a pair of crystal radios for himself and his sister, made an electric arc from carbon rods, and even fabricated a Tesla coil In math he…tore through the curriculum so quickly that they had to beg th teacher to instruct them in college-level mathematics…
But…miserable other grades- and the resulting median of mediocrity made him less than a good college prospect…It seemed likely he would now have to attend a trade school…”
The video below was made when Bill Hewlett and David Packard won the 1995 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award. For lots more videos, stories, and resources for dyslexia, join our Dyslexic Advantage community.
Doing it the HP Way
William Hewlett
Stories about Bill Hewlett
Bill and Dave by Michael Malone
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2 comments:
I was fortunate -- Mr. Hewlett was one of my father's acquaintances.
Something I've never read in stories about him: he had a lovely, beguiling speaking voice, like a cello (at least from the late 1960s, when I first remember hearing him).
Hi Liz,
From the Stories link above, I also liked this one about Bill Hewlett:
"When he was in eighth grade, Steve Jobs decided to build a frequency counter for a school project and needed parts. Someone suggested that he call Bill Hewlett. Finding a William Hewlett in the telephone book, the 12-year-old Jobs called and asked, "Is this the Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard?" "Yes," said Bill. Jobs made his request. Bill spent some time talking to him about his project. Several days later, Jobs went to HP and picked up a bag full of parts that Bill had put together for him.
Subsequently, Jobs landed a summer job at HP. He later went on to co-found Apple Computer."
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