An Interview with Bill Hewlett

Shroff: You've often said: Don't try to take a fortified hill, especially if the army on top is bigger than yours. How would that apply to someone who's starting up a business right now? Would you tell them not to go against a big company, like IBM or HP?
Hewlett: Well, look, we all have our areas of strength. For instance, with our printing program. That just came up in the last 5 years. We're really dominant in that area. I wouldn't recommend starting up printing, unless you have some new technique.

I still say, never take a fortified position unless you have to. There're always some area where the company is not doing to full capacity. Try and find weaknesses. The world is a big place.

Shroff: Your life experiences. I was wondering which experience do you feel was most rewarding in life?
Hewlett: I think one was the year I spent at MIT because it was, it took another view of science. And I had learned it at Stanford.
I still say, never take a fortified position unless you have to. There're always some area where the company is not doing to full capacity. Try and find weaknesses. The world is a big place.
So, here I had to learn a new technique of studying. I knew areas of study, but very different than it was taught here. It was very important to me. Now you went against some pretty good people at MIT.
Well, my father was a doctor. And he was very beloved. I didn't want to compete with his image. This was very serious: I just didn't.
Shroff: You were also interested . . .in medicine, weren't you?
Hewlett: Well, my father was a doctor. And he was very beloved. I didn't want to compete with his image. This was very serious: I just didn't.
Gemperlein: If you hadn't done what you did, what would your backup career be? Would have been a singer, a dancer, a teacher, a doctor?
Hewlett: I don't think I'd be a singer or dancer!

Gemperlein: So you had no backup career?

Hewlett: Well, no, I didn't.

Gemperlein: Would you ever hire a computer hacker who had committed a crime?
Hewlett: I wouldn't. Personal integrity is very important.

Shroff: I've got a situation for you. Someone who is cheating off of someone else in school. What would you give as advice to them so they don't continue this path?

Hewlett: Don't do it. It's wrong, and you can get caught up on it. In other words, I have very high moral standards.

Did you ever think that computers were a fad? And that they would go away?
I didn't always know.
Gemperlein: Did you ever think that computers were a fad? And that they would go away?
Hewlett: I didn't always know. We just got into computers indirectly. We were the first in the instrument business, and our customers wanted data presented in their form and not the form we presented. The answers came up the same way.

So our first computers were supplements to our instruments. .. They were much easier to use. That was important. Have you heard the use of time-share? . . .Well, the use of time-share was important because our computers had a much longer time between failures and that was important in time-share because all these people tied up on these things and the computer goes down, it's a heck of a time to get it straightened out.

Shroff: You've been on both sides of the wall, streets, as an engineer and as a CEO. I was wondering which experience do you think you enjoy more? Hands-on engineering or the behind-the-desk running the company?
Hewlett: Well, it's hard to beat being successful. The fact you ran the company that was successful is satisfaction itself. But it's also measurably rewarding. So that was it. You know, Dave (Packard) and I didn't suddenly decide that we're going into the computer business.
We took on whoever we could. I remember we took one guy who'd been a lady's hairdresser. He turned out to be very good in the machine shop.
We'd been in business for half our careers and so this was just an extension of what we'd been doing in the past, and a lot of these things just carried over.

For instance, this business of the Depression. When I was born, during the Depression, there was no money, so we said: We don't want to borrow money. People who'd borrowed money had gotten into trouble. We also said: We don't want to hire and fire in our company. And things like that. Really reflected our background of what it was like to be in a bad economy. So we were lucky to be able to do that. We took on whoever we could. I remember we took one guy who'd been a lady's hairdresser. He turned out to be very good in the machine shop.