William Hewlett

The co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Company, William Hewlett (1913-2001) started the business in 1939 with his friend Stanford University engineering classmate David Packard. In 1939, they started a tiny electronics outfit in a one-car garage behind a rented home in Palo Alto. Their first product was a resistance capacity audio oscillator Hewlett has designed in graduate school. After service as a U.S. Army officer during World War II, Hewlett returned to the growing business as Vice President. Hewlett-Packard incorporated in 1947 and became a publicly traded company ten years later. Known informally as HP, the business grew enormously in the 1960s, manufacturing precision electronic equipment for measurement, analysis and computation, and William Hewlett became one of America's wealthiest self-made men. Today, HP produces computers, servers, networking devices, software, printers, and other imaging products for both business and household use. It is the largest manufacturer of personal computers, operating in nearly every country in the world. William Hewlett served as CEO of the firm from 1969 to 1978. This audio podcast was recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1981 Summit in Dallas, Texas, when William Hewlett was serving as Chairman of the company’Ŵs Executive Committee. He talks about the history of Hewlett-Packard, and the social responsibility that comes with success in business. He tells the Academy's student delegates that a corporation must serve the public interest if it wants to survive. He asserts that equal opportunities exist for all those who are willing to give up security and take risks for success.