David Packard (1912–96) was an American engineer, entrepreneur, business executive, civil servant, and philanthropist. He was the co-founder and a longtime executive of Hewlett-Packard, one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of electronic measuring devices, calculators, printers, and computers. He also served as deputy secretary of defense under President Richard Nixon. His philanthropic establishment, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, is one of the world’s leading charities.
Packard, along with fellow Stanford University electrical engineering graduate William “Bill” Hewlett, founded the Silicon Valley technology company Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) in 1939. Together the two men built a strong company that survived World War II and enjoyed continual success after the government’s wartime contracts concluded.
Packard and Hewlett created the “H-P Way”—a revolutionary ethical code of management practice that fostered company longevity and entrepreneurial spirit while creating a sense of comradeship among employees. With their leadership, HP grew from a small testing-appliance manufacturer to the world’s second-largest computer company. By 1995, HP had 100,000 employees on its payroll and annual revenues of $31 billion.
Packard’s autobiography The HP Way (1996) reveals the story of how Hewlett and Packard built a company based on a framework of principles and the simplicity of their management methods. The culture that HP invented became the archetype of the high-tech industry; Packard and Hewlett came to be recognized as “Silicon Valley’s Founding Fathers.”
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You shouldn’t gloat about anything you’ve done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do.
—David Packard
Topics: Humility
A company has a responsibility beyond making a profit for stockholders; it has a responsibility to recognize the dignity of its employees as human beings, to the well-being of its customers, and to the community at large.
—David Packard
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