This is a book about the ability of
corporate culture to preserve a company through hard times and periods of transition.
The case in point is Hewlett-Packard. Michael S. Malone''s solid
corporate biography skirts hagiography as he covers the business that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built, and why and how they built it. Malone only touches upon their personal lives in relation to the company''s development. He doesn''t deal much with the nitty-gritty of their problems, but he does set out the broad picture of where they succeeded (often) and tripped up (rarely). A nice feature of the book is the use of stars in the text that refer you to a section in the back of the book that summarizes the lessons
illustrated by that part of the story. At times Malone brings up object lessons maybe once too often (for example, the buyout and hiring of Tektronic''s sales reps). Still, getAbstract finds that his many valid, interesting insights counteract that issue, and recommends this book to anyone interested in the history of technology.