It's a good book and I really respect their management philosophy which could not be more different than modern corporate theory. Just look at this snippet of

It's a good book and I really respect their management philosophy which could not be more different than modern corporate theory. Just look at this snippet of Dave's statement on the purpose of a corporation (The whole thing is really worth a read). "I want to discuss why a company exists in the first place. In other words, why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company's existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being. As we investigate this, we inevitably come to the conclusion that a group of people get together and exist as an institution that we call a company so they are able to accomplish something collectively which they could not accomplish separately. They are able to do something worthwhile-they make a contribution to society (a phrase which sounds trite but is fundamental)" Remember that Bill and Dave started HP as a 2 man operation in their garage during the great depression. They basically built the company from nothing into a technology power house over the course of their lives and the things that they went through clearly shaped how they ran the company. It is a testament that you can still find a large number of impressive engineers that were HP lifers.