David Packard Quotations

Take risks. Ask big questions. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; if you don't make mistakes, you're not reaching far enough.

I think that we must find some way to get more common sense, more rationality, in our decisions and less emotion.

A company has a greater responsibility than making money for its stockholders. We have a responsibility to our employees to recognize their dignity as human beings.

You appear to have a good project... we wish you well in this endeavor.

Why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists solely to make money. Money is an important part of a companys existence, if the company is any good. But a result is not a cause. We have to go deeper and find the real reason for our being.

The most important question we have to deal with is a combination of population control and the control of our environment - how to utilize the world in as effective a way as we can for the future of mankind.

Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.

I have observed that money left without special guidance is sometimes used well and sometimes not.

Bill Hewlett and I were brought up in the Depression. We weren't interested in the idea of making any money. Our idea was if you couldn't find a job, you'd make one for yourself.

Lew was such a straightforward and honest guy. The employees loved him.

The betterment of society is not a job to be left to a few. It's a responsibility to be shared by all.

More organizations die of indigestion than starvation

To remain static is to lose ground.

Profit is not the proper end and aim of management - it is what makes all of the proper ends and aims possible

The greatest success goes to the person who is not afraid to fail in front of even the largest audience.

Management by Walking Around

People, materials, facilities, money, and time are the resources available to us for conducting our business. By applying our skills, we turn these resources into useful products and services. If we do a good job, customers pay us more for our products than the sum of our costs in producing and distributing them. This difference, our profit, represents the value we add to the resources we utilize.

Avoid openly trying to reform people. Every man knows he is imperfect, but he doesn't want someone else trying to correct his faults. If you want to improve a person, help him embrace a higher working goal-a standard, an ideal-and he will do his own 'making over' far more effectively than you can do it for him.

I am perfectly aware that HP has never guaranteed absolute tenure status to its employees; but I also know that Bill and Dave never developed a premeditated business strategy that treated HP employees as expendable,

I could disagree with Lew but I never started a public campaign against him, ... He was such a decent person.