[Recorded December 7, 2009]
Hewlett-Packard HP is now (Dec 2009) the largest high-tech company on the globe, with its roots and headquarters in Silicon Valley. However, HP has not always garnered the same attention from authors, historians and the media as given to other technology companies. So, what is it that drove the success of this large and profitable company?

The book, The HP Phenomenon, describes how it came to be that HP never really a computing company got to this leadership position in PCs, in printers, in mid-range servers, in GUI designs, in handheld calculators, and even in disc drives, not to mention microcomputer chips, communication chips, and LED display chips. Perhaps more importantly, it describes a very different kind of company, one where serendipity and multiple lines of investigation and inquiry lead to very defensible competitive positions against seemingly more focused, more aggressive and more innovative companies. It even explains the unusual symbiosis between Intel, the Japanese memory manufacturers and HP chip and computer system designers that has never been told before a story that reworked an entire industry. 
Author Chuck House is the only person in the history of HP to win the companys Award for Meritorious Defiance. KQED’s Dave Iverson moderates this discussion with House on HP’s ethos, its spirit of innovation and the complex matter of product and Business Strategies that drove the Companys success. He gives an insiders view of a HP, whose history and evolution is really the history and evolution, he believes of the Silicon Valley.

Duration : 1:14:32

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