Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders
The story of how Hewlett-Packard pioneered the electronics industry in Silicon Valley.
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on May 11, 2007
If you would like to learn how Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built the company that seeded Silicon Valley, this interview is for you.I have long been curious about the origins of Silicon Valley’s dominance of the electronics industry. While I was aware that Shockley started his semiconductor company there in 1956, I sensed that it was not really the beginning. After all, Ampex, Lenkurt, Farinon, and Varian, among others, were already established in the Santa Clara valley. Even earlier, Philo Farnsworth pioneered television in San Francisco. But Farnsworth’s company left no direct descendents nearby.Therefore, by triangulation, it appears that Hewlett-Packard was the true source in 1938. Michael Malone recently published a book, entitled Bill and Dave, which explains how Bill Hewlett and David Packard got everything started and built their company into a pillar of the electronics industry.
Unlike today’s swaggering VCs, the two young Stanford engineers basically formed the company merely to be gainfully employed in their chosen field, and to live in a desired geographic area. It was, after all, the Great Depression.
By comparison to later Valley entrepreneurs, their financial ambitions seem to have been secondary. Yet, after 70 years, H-P remains not only one of the World’s most powerful companies, but also one of the most innovative.
I have stared a Wiki on this book at www.billanddave.wetpaint.com and you may email me for an invitation if you want to contribute.
Our guest today Michael Malone who is a noted author of a number of books about Silicon Valley.
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: bill hewlett, Dave Packard, hewlett packard, mike malone, silicon valley
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