"The results of my efforts on that front are the subject for another post; here I'm just going to talk about the two types of executives I met during my two years there.
"The first represented the Bill & Dave world: they believed that everyone in the company had to constantly evaluate their own "contribution" to HP, put their head down, and make a difference. Most had Bill & Dave stories of their own, whether it was driving either of the founders to the airport when they were busy visiting one of the company's outposts in Colorado or Idaho, or sitting through a review where Hewlett would encourage a feat of engineering prowess or Packard would explode about "not being able to make a dime" on some engineering breakthrough.
"The second had been teleported in from the central casting departments of other big tech companies that Hurd respected. They used terms like "value add," and "thinking ahead a few chess moves," relished the abstract concept "competitive advantage" and attached totemic reverie to the "P&L reviews" even when it was clear that this was an exercise in cargo cult management. They were also often quite a bit more concerned about managing their "brands" in the face of their SVP, EVP, and eventually Hurd reviews.
"I spent most of my time with my fellow HP executives telling the first kind of folks that the transplants weren't playing the same game as them— that no matter how much it sounded like they were trying to achieve the same goals, there were other motives at work."
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