"Great men are almost always bad men", Lord Accton said that a long time back. But 'Bill and Dave' makes a point that this is not necessarily always the case. It is the tale of William Hewlett (Bill) and David Packard (Dave), both widely respected silicon valley icons, and their founding of HP. The remarkable thing about these guys is that there is much to learn from their lives (which sadly can't be said about some other industry icons). These are the archetypal good guys who finished first.
So here we meet Bill, a severe dyslexic in childhood, who through his persistence went on to become 'The Engineer's Engineer', and Dave, who kept his salary at a low because he did not want to exceed what Bill was making serving in WWII, even when HP was making great strides under his leadership. We also meet their longtime mentor Fred Terman, who was the first to visualize and systematically help build what today is known as 'Silicon Valley'.
Many rituals of silicon valley such as flex-time, daily coffee hour, Friday beer busts and employees working on their own projects in company time originated with Bill and Dave. And their ability to align business objectives with objectives of employees and complement each other's strengths and compensate for each other's weaknesses is all too remarkable. Such resonance is kinda rare.
Overall an interesting read, full of anecdotes. Highly recommended!!
So here we meet Bill, a severe dyslexic in childhood, who through his persistence went on to become 'The Engineer's Engineer', and Dave, who kept his salary at a low because he did not want to exceed what Bill was making serving in WWII, even when HP was making great strides under his leadership. We also meet their longtime mentor Fred Terman, who was the first to visualize and systematically help build what today is known as 'Silicon Valley'.
Many rituals of silicon valley such as flex-time, daily coffee hour, Friday beer busts and employees working on their own projects in company time originated with Bill and Dave. And their ability to align business objectives with objectives of employees and complement each other's strengths and compensate for each other's weaknesses is all too remarkable. Such resonance is kinda rare.
Overall an interesting read, full of anecdotes. Highly recommended!!
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