Hewlett-Packard was the original flagship company of silicon valley — in fact along with Stanford University this amazing company really put the valley in a tech leadership position eons before the era of the personal computer. In fact it’s by no mistake that Woz was working there as Apple was being founded — and he didn’t want to leave until he was prodded because HP was a geek’s geek institution. Yet what’s amazing about HP is that it hasn’t faded with time; this video explores how the company has reinvented itself time and time again.
The one thing that I’ve noticed of late is that every yabbo software entrepreneur always cries foul at the slightest notion of the auto industry getting a government rescue. But the one thing these folks seem to forget is that there wouldn’t be a software industry if it weren’t for the very socialist roots of silicon valley. The valley didn’t happen by any sort of happy accident — it occurred because because of heavy investment by the defense industry in companies like HP going back to World War II. In fact even the internet itself wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) invented the damn thing. In the above video from the Computer History Museum entrepreneur Steve Blank gives a history of how the valley is the child of a welfare program recipient (which all in all is a very good thing for this county).
