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Establishing and retaining a culture over several decades is not easy, especially in publicly listed companies where CEOs and board members get replaced every f
by AnonC 5y ago
Establishing and retaining a culture over several decades is not easy, especially in publicly listed companies where CEOs and board members get replaced every few years or every decade, each bringing baggage from where they were before.
The HP Way was still popular and well known/followed even during the waning years of Carly Fiorina and for sometime after her departure.
I don’t understand why this would be a failure of the founders long after they moved out. Look at Google, which went as far as dethroning the “don’t be evil” mantra in its early teens. HP has probably kept its culture for several multiples of that before it was drowned out.
- ghaff 5y agoIt's complicated. The business climate changes. As you say, CEOs change and HP arguably went through particular tumult in that regard with a generally lackluster Platt and then all the Fiorina-associated drama. (Who lugged "the garage" around from stage to stage but didn't really walk the walk as much as talked the talk.) Times change in other ways as well. It's hard to compare how major computer companies operated and what the expectations were of employees in the 70s/80s compared to today. I expect if you average mid-level Google engineer were dropped into HP, IBM, Intel, or DEC ~1980, they'd probably find a lot to not like.