Bill Hewlett Quotes
18 quotes from Bill Hewlett — Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard (HP), one of the most important technology companies ever..
“The greatest success goes to the person who is not afraid to fail in front of even the largest audience.”
“Set out to build a company and make a contribution, not an empire and a fortune.”
“The best possible company management is one that combines a sense of corporate greatness and destiny, with empathy for, and fidelity to, the average employee.”
“The biggest competitive advantage is to do the right thing at the worst time.”
“A company that focuses solely on profits ultimately betrays both itself and society.”
“Corporate reorganizations should be made for cultural reasons more than financial ones.”
“A frustrated employee is a greater threat than a merely unhappy one.”
“The job of a manager is to support his or her staff, not vice versa and that begins by being among them.”
“The best business decisions are the most humane decisions. And, all other talents being even, the greatest managers are also the most human managers.”
“Investing in new product development and expanding the product catalog are the most difficult things to do in hard times, and also among the most important.”
“I guess that's what I'm most proud of — the fact that we really created a way to work with employees, let them share in the profits and still keep control of it.”
“We feel our objectives can best be achieved by people who understand what they are trying to do and can utilize their own capabilities to do them. Supervision is not a job of giving orders; it is a job of providing the opportunity for people to use their capabilities efficiently and effectively.”
“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something quite different.”
“In the beginning, we did anything to bring in a nickel. We had a bowling-lane foul-line indicator. We had a thing that would make a urinal flush automatically as soon as a guy came in front of it. We had a shock machine to make people lose weight.”
“Creativity works best when it is not too structured, but it must, in the long run, be tamed, harnessed, and hitched to the wagon of man's needs.”
“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.”
“I've never found anyone who says 'no,' or hung up the phone when I called. I just asked. Most people never pick up the phone and call, most people never ask. And that's what separates sometimes the people that do things from the people that just dream about them.”
“We wanted to teach the calculator routines so that it would never forget.”
