From Innovation to Irrelevance: How HP Lost Their Way

[@TheDataScienceChannel]

My first computer was an HP. It's really disappointing to see what happened to them. I still remember the time when everyone considered HP computers to be some of the most well designed machines available on the market

[@LogicallyAnswered]

😔

[@betapacket]

2nd reply

[@questtoomz]

Third

[@DingDongDood]

Yup, them HP Pavillions used to hit hard 😔✊

[@TheDataScienceChannel]

@@questtoomz lol 😂

[@RynardMooreVstar1]

If anything it was Carly Fiorina who is ultimately responsible for HP's downfall. Fiorina had all the key components -- particularly in the form of DEC to make HP a company that could have revolutionized computing. Instead Fiorina both squandered that opportunity and those resources because of her shear stupidity and incompetence.

[@grannybird7365]

I had a good friend that worked at HP. When CF arrived he called a friend and asked “now what”? Friend said if you’re over 40, you’re toast. He quit before the blood bath and 30 yrs of experience left with him, and many others.

[@Call-me-James]

The biggest problem for HP was that they had CEOs who didn't really understand technology. Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd, and Leo Apotheker didn't understand the culture of engineering, and they didn't understand what they were buying when they made acquisitions. These idiots thought they could understand a company by looking at financial statements and spreadsheets, instead of looking at the engineering. It is a hopeful sign that the new CEO, Enrique Lores, has a degree in electrical engineering.

[@gesshoku92]

Same exact story played out at Mercedes .

[@Psychopatz]

@@gesshoku92 what happened tobit tho? sorry I'm not active on car news

[@gesshoku92]

@@Psychopatz In brief Used to have engineers in charge made expensive but tech impressive cars. Switched to cost cutting MBA CEO. Kept price of cars high but continuously found ways to make parts cheaper while still charging premium. Coasted on luxuary brand until the an entire generation only knew them as a used to be luxary brand that breaks alot. in 19 the rehired an Engineer for CEO to try and course correct after flagging sales in next generation buyers.

[@gesshoku92]

Simplification of 30 years for sake of fitting in a comment but there are good videos that give a more thorough analysis of the situation.

[@raylopez99]

Well, what about companies that understood technology, like Xerox Parc? At least they did better right?...

[@brucemcintyre295]

Back in 1970, I was in a computer club meeting at HP headquarters in Palo Alto, and Bill Packard happened to walk into the meeting. The key message from Bill during his time was a response to a question, "Why does HP invest in so many startups of ex-employees?" The response was "If your company is not the one that innovates and replaces your company products, then someone else will eat your lunch."

[@karelpipa]

I guess since then more and more cutting costs managers came and here we are?

[@JB-yb4wn]

Nice story, but BS. David Packard, you fool.

[@brucemcintyre295]

@@JB-yb4wn As that was some 50 years ago, and my brain gets foggy some times I was wrong, not Bill Packard but Bill Hewlett. Dave had already left HP at that point. Sorry, my apologies.

[@JB-yb4wn]

@@brucemcintyre295 Apology means something only if it is ten pages and hand written. 😁

[@waster00]

@@JB-yb4wn wow you must be very fun to be around

[@nandi123]

HP's fate was sealed once they put a non-engineer in charge. I remember seeing Carly Fiorina dancing on stage at a company meeting. I sold all of my stock the next day.

[@rami8896]

"HP's fate was sealed once they put a non-engineer in charge". A lot of companies seem to make that mistake

[@nandi123]

@@rami8896 HP chose public relations over intelligence and integrity; first with Fiorina, then Hurd. The great engineers left the company for other jobs or retired. The people that stayed wrote email and made powerpoints all day long.

[@xplinux22]

​@@nandi123 And after being forced out of HP over a sexual harassment scandal and inaccurate expense reporting, Mark Hurd became co-CEO of _Oracle_ of all companies, if that doesn't give you a clue about his character.

[@xplinux22]

Fiorina seems like a real piece of work too, based on the Wikipedia page. After requesting her employees voluntarily take pay cuts to avoid mass layoffs, which they did (saved the company $130m) she announced the to-them surprise merger with Compaq (a questionable deal at the time) and laid off 15,000 anyway. Over time, a total of 30,000 were laid off as a result of the merger. She also had an export sanctions evasion scandal occur under her watch, selling computers to Iran under a subsidiary company in the Gulf. Apparently she was so disliked at the company that she was sometimes booed by employees at company meetings and attacked on HP's electronic bulletin board.

[@xplinux22]

Seems HP had a _really_ bad track record of picking out good successor CEOs and the board was very dysfunctional at the time.

[@3ffrige]

The founding fathers, being Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, weren't passionate about computers and printers. They weren't passionate about the life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets. They were passionate about engineering and building solid, high end test equipment. The souls of these two wonderful individuals live on through Keysight Technologies.

[@linkcubuspark]

The spinoff of their Agilent products, selling their verigy testers to advantest shows its lost of interest to their founders core business essentially!

[@frankgerlach4467]

Not totally correct. They also built a highly sophisticated enterprise computing business around the HP MPE, PA RISC and HP-UX technologies. Oh, and they once even had a industrial control computer biz. HP was absolutely remarkable in many different ways and it was financially very strong once.

[@frankgerlach4467]

@@linkcubuspark Correct. Advantest is now a key element of the semiconductor production process. They supply the testers to check most of the semiconductors we use these days. Think of Android CPUs, GPUs, Memory Chips, Power Transistors etc. The HP Way is also very much alive there.

[@ivanmaglica264]

A big portion of HP was left out. They acquired Compaq and with it huge consumer and especially server portfolio. Remember, Compaq were the predecessors of HP rack servers. They also acquired Alpha CPU architecture and ventured into Itanium, which turned out to be a money black hole.

[@jrstf]

Bought Palm in 2011, shut it down in 2012.

[@valenrn8657]

Before Alpha, HP and Commodore tried with PA-RISC. Commodore went bust in 1994. Precision RISC Organization, an industry group led by HP, was founded in 1992, to promote the PA-RISC architecture. Members included Convex, Hitachi, Hughes Aircraft, Mitsubishi, NEC, OKI, Prime, Stratus, Yokogawa, Red Brick Software, and Allegro Consultants, Inc. If Commodore survive into 1995, the Amiga would have PA-RISC OpenGL-based games console and personal computers. HP replaced Motorola 68K-based workstations with PA-RISC. Commodore attempted to replace Motorola 68K-based workstations, personal computers, and game consoles with PA-RISC.

[@JessSimpson1313]

I worked at HP from 2009 to 2012. In that time I was given 4x role changes from l1 support to l2, then l3, then sustaining. This wasn't cause I was some amazing tech, but because I was the only one who hadn't been on those teams for 5+ years and was applying for the higher roles. Sadly in 2012 they layed off the entire support department I worked for so they could hire cheaper engineers in Georgia. As I was moved to engineering I was kept onboard but wasn't going to stick around knowing what they do to employees so I left for a customer who wanted to bring me in house. This is their doenfall, they shoot themselves in the foot to save a few dollars over and over again.

[@williamallen7836]

Exactly. They have done the whole burn & churn, or as we used to call it, the fuck'em & chuck'em method of employee relations since the mid 1990's. The only other big Silicon Valley company that was worse to work for was Cisco. Ware back stabbing competitions was a major part of Cisco's corporate culture.

[@arcaneisboring7675]

Tldr; i worked on your moms pussy. Noone fuuucking cares what you share on the intershit you retard.

[@JB-yb4wn]

It reminds me of Boeing who opened a factory in South Carolina to save costs. South Carolina doesn't have the calibre of aerotech workers that you get in Washington. The planes ended up with all sorts of shoddy workmanship, so much so that clients specifically wrote in their contracts that they wanted their planes to come from the Everett factory. I think that HP and Boeing suffered from the same rot you get when you're an industry leader.

[@williamallen7836]

@@JB-yb4wn Boeing definitely had it's issues, but not as bad as Lockheed. I used to work for Northrop Grumman. Grumman would do sub contract for both. There were times Grumman would win a military contract & build what ever was contracted. Few years later Lockheed would get a contract to upgrade it by undercutting the cost. Then a year or 2 later Grumman would win the contract to fix whatever Lockheed screwed up. Lockheed still makes decent instruments for aircraft, but should be kept away from any other contract. It's a shame how low Lockheed has fallen.

[@JB-yb4wn]

@@williamallen7836 You would think that the military would have wised up to such shenanigans and told Lockheed to shape up or ship out.

[@ramaswamyadisesh6848]

I used to work for HP. Like the article says, they were known for innovation and highest quality products. They were also known for integrity and HP culture and philosophy. It was a great company to work for. Customer satisfaction was a focus. Then came Carly Fiona, et al and it went down the drain. Buying Compaq was the biggest mistake. Only person benefiting from that was Carly. Instead of innovation, they would buy a startup and peddle that for few days until that became obsolete and buy another and peddle it for few days... you get the picture. Their theory was that the startups could invent products much cheaper than what HP could do with their overhead of a large corporation. But then there was not a clear path as they do not know what product they would acquire next and how they all fit together. I just bought a laptop from HP, and needed customer support. I would never buy another HP laptop. I worked at Roseville and Cupertino locations. I never could never imagine a day when HP would have to sell the Cupertino location just to make ends meet! It sure happened some years ago. They also sold several buildings or demolished few to cut costs at Roseville. Talk about going from Riches to Rags.

[@llothar68]

THere is a still a C3600 HP-PARISC workstation in my garage. I use it from time to time .... as a box to step on when i have to change the light bulb. Dam'it this machines were made to last forever and break peoples back when moving their desk.

[@ramaswamyadisesh6848]

@@llothar68 Due to my past loyalty, I have been buying HP Laptops. The last one I bought s a piece of crap. It would not even boot up when opened the box. I called HP support and they wanted me to subscribe to HP support that cost $50 or $60 per month. They could not fix it and it is unusable. I am never buying an HP system or anything from HP again.

[@llothar68]

@@ramaswamyadisesh6848 Well this workstation was build i think in 2001. It's a massive block of steel, a PC sized desktop case but 30kg weight. I would also not buy HP today. This was a retro purchase to see what professionals have used in the past. Payed around $250 for an 8GB machine. Honestly with Laptops. I would never buy one at the moment. They are all compromises or way too expensive. I go with Desktop or Tablet. I guess thats what getting old means. I'm not so mobile anymore like in job/university days. I'm still a contract worker. But a good chair for $900 was more important then a Laptop.

[@frankgerlach4467]

In the end the founders did not groom the right successors. Neither their own children nor a cadre of HP engineers were groomed into worthy successors.

[@DavidEndry]

@@llothar68 Any interest in a Digital Equipment Corporation MicroVAX II in my garage? It still powers up. I so loved VMS.

[@daveayerstdavies]

The downfall of HP started with the appointment of Carly Fiorina as CEO in 1999. She sold off the analytical instruments part of the business and turned HP into "just another PC manufacturer" with the acquisition of Compaq. It was pretty much downhill for the next 20 years.

[@frankgerlach4467]

They had serious technology with PA RISC and HPUX, too. Both were left to die instead of using it as a springboard to future.

[@lmanstl]

HPE is still one of the largest server hardware manufacturers today. Usually set in 1st or 2nd with Dell. While they don’t have the software (with the massive margins that come with it) that Dell does with VMWare, they are still major player in the server world.

[@chosenone6158]

I don't think he's done much research on the fall part. He literally said they split into computer and printer business when that isn't true. Probably only knows what they do with the consumer facing part.

[@Tawnos_]

What are their margins on that hardware? What offerings do they have that set them apart?

[@NeilSkaria]

Don't forget that high margin storage too

[@LogggSapling]

Yeah, the 2nd half of the video is very poorly researched. Though both companies may not be the juggernauts they once were, they are far from irrelevant.

[@NigelFurtado]

@@Tawnos_ HPE is now providing everything as a Service, including hardware. This guys videos are generally good, but his research has missed the mark here big time. Throughout the video he was referring to HP as just the printer and consumer business. HPE and HP are totally different companies.

[@hanro50]

Their printers and ink are overpriced and hostile to consumers. Furthermore, the laptops they offer towards general consumers have weak hinges in my experience. Edit: to clarify, I am talking about modern HP machines. Their enterprise grade equipment tends to be solid in comparison as well.

[@richardf6932]

Worked for hp from 2000-2010. Sad to see where it is today. The culture back then was lost with rounds and rounds of layoffs. As a supervisors, I was coached as to when to do the layoffs so the savings would show up in the following quarters earning report. Hp should be a case study of what not to do.

[@chrisnamaste3572]

You can't cut your way to greatness but you can cut to maintain share prices until you cash out stock options. Engineers build companies, the corporate suits kill companies.

[@PO-nb8qc]

I worked in HP decade ago. It was a good company. The food in the cafe was very good!

[@reece3408]

Why’d you leave?

[@LogicallyAnswered]

^^

[@pradap2298]

Food ?

[@rizkyadiyanto7922]

@@reece3408 the food was getting less delicious.

[@olimpather]

@@reece3408 Seriously?

[@jarvisfamily3837]

When I graduated from high school my big purchase going off to college was an HP programmable calculator. TI calculators were more popular, but HP said "quality" like nothing else. In college I helped with the installation and operation of an HP-3000 minicomputer. When I graduated from college and was heading off to the Navy to work off my ROTC obligation my very first paycheck was used to buy an HP-41C. (Yeah, I'm old... :-). Once upon a time, HP was viewed as a producer of high-quality top-end products that commanded a price premium in the market. Nowadays, they're a producer of commodity products that are very much the same as everyone else's. How the mighty have fallen...

[@frankgerlach4467]

Let this be a guide to yourself. This is what happens if you subscribe to weakness.

[@dorbie]

This is what happens to every tech innovation company when you put a bean counter with no vision in charge.

[@xy4489]

Their incentive is clear: if company does well they get hundreds of millions, if company does poorly, they get tens of millions. You think they sweat too much about that bottom line?

[@dr.elvis.h.christ]

The destruction of HP can be summed up in two words: Carli Fiorina.

[@ItsTristan1st]

And a string of other terrible managers.

[@litteliten4999]

Well, one can't quota innovation, talent is where talent is.

[@kktech04]

Darn Right. She was clueless. Totally uninformed. Technically illiterate. A big spender, too. She destroyed HP

[@starguy2718]

Before Carly destroyed HP, she did a similar number on Bell Labs.

[@rockpadstudios]

"her" real name is Carlton Fiorina

[@amptechron]

Their former test equipment division (now renamed Keysight) still makes the best oscilloscopes and other test gear available. I still use an HP audio analyzer and a Keysight 'scope everyday.

[@H0mework]

I didn't know it became keysight. I like their videos. It's too expensive and overkill for the average person using a scope.

[@dr.elvis.h.christ]

Those were the days when HP's reputation for quality was very high. When Fiorina got her greedy hands on it, everything fell apart, quite literally when you consider parts of the company being broken off. Buying Compaq wasn't a bright idea either except from the perspective of buying marketshare. But what did they do? They kept the crappy Compaq products and renamed them, while discontinuing the superior HP stuff.

[@dr.elvis.h.christ]

@@H0mework News to me too. At the time of the spinoff it was Agilent.

[@KekusMagnus]

Yup, I use an HP digital multimeter daily at work and it's amazing how well it works despite being 20 years old

[@headpox5817]

@@dr.elvis.h.christ In summary, Agilent was an HP spin-off for test & measurement stuff as well as the medical equipment. Then Agilent split off the test & measurement into Keysight. Agilent continue in the medical equipment field. HP spun off all sorts of other stuff, which is impossible to keep track of. Yes, the old-school HP test gear was/is top-of-the-line. Gold plated PCB's, user manuals which included the theory of operation and detailed schematics with the intention that it will be used for decades.... Who does that now?

[@apc9714]

I think you might have been a bit too harsh on the company. They aren't an innovative tech company, nor a gigant, but they aren't doing terribly either. They are still a quite popular brand for students/workers looking to use windows. HP still makes billions, has been invested in by Berkshire, and as you said is basically the only western company living off hardware, which as you pointed out is a though business (ask Phillips). Even though I (partially) disagree, I always appreciate your video as always.

[@chosenone6158]

They were expanding in VR space too recently and the G2 was one of the best headsets after valve index and oculus... Until they discontinued it last year and Microsoft also started pulling support for wmr headsets. They are just consistently bad on the business side of decisions.

[@StormKnight1]

I like their USBs.

[@frankgerlach4467]

There are other electronics companies in NATOland who do quite well. Rohde+Schwarz, Bosch, Thales to name a few.

[@harshranjan8526]

Ironically, I am watching this on my HP laptop

[@monolith2001]

I rode the HP employment train. I started at HP in 1998, went to the Agilent spinoff for a few years, came back to HP, they did he HPE thing and I did the DXC dance before leaving for better opportunities. Back in 1999-2000, that was the place to work...I had so much fun and when I travelled (field engineer), I felt like I was a king. In hindsight it was extravagant but I loved my job back then.

[@hankhillsnrrwurethra]

I work at HPE we would rather smash our teeth with a hammer than deal with DXC

[@goldyb787]

I bought a new hp laptop and faced some minor bios problem and they helped me solve it.. Really impressed by their customer service..

[@eecalo]

Once management lost "The HP Way", there was nothing else to do. As a former employee, it's sad to see HP going down the drain.

[@ReinierKleipool]

Former employee here (1988-1996). The one company that is still truly entitled to bear the name Hewlett-Packard, still building innovative measurement equipment, Keysight, is not allowed to... The other HP* companies are really making a big mess of it. They do not invent, but resell somebody else's stuff. The current situation is really the worst outcome possible.

[@frankgerlach4467]

We knew it coming, when FIORINA added the "invent" word to the logo. Before everybody KNEW HP was innovative, now she had to lie about it.

[@ReinierKleipool]

@@frankgerlach4467 Never knew it was her idea to put "invent" under the logo... Indeed completely superfluous, unless you don't invent... Also, HP people used to be very decent and polite people. No one would even think of calling the CEO "The HP bitch"...

[@OctavioGaitan]

My family and I would ALWAYS buy computers and stuff from HP because friends and many salespeople always highly recommend them to me and my family as they were one of the best and most well-respected tech companies. As an HP customer for more than 20 years, it's saddening what they've become today. How the mighty have fallen... 😔

[@Vinsternator40]

The only thing I can remember from HP was the sheer amount of bloatware they had preinstalled on my PC that would reinstall itself after every major OS update. I hated it.

[@PaulPlay]

Their stock has only been rising in the past 5 years and they are currently at their highest price ever. Can‘t really speak of a downfall here. In addition to that, they are the second biggest laptop manufacturer in terms of sales units

[@coldestbeer]

Fr most of my windows user friends use hp

[@MiseRaen]

Its out of necessity. When other brands are out of stock, people have no choice but to buy HP products.

[@UfjfjXkxkf]

​@@MiseRaen HP is decent, they make cheap junk for ppl on a budget but the price reflects the quality obviously

[@TheWallStreetBullshitter]

I thought they were doing OK at this point. Not great but OK. Many comments are more and more seemingly confirming this. I think this KZbinr needs better research. That and bias is starting to show.

[@PaulPlay]

@@TheWallStreetBullshitter Yeah, could very well be that a video like this is influenced by a competitor to sabotage their stocks

[@ksmith2852]

I used to be loyal. Then after buying an HP laptop loaded with all kinds of crappy bloatware almost impossible to remove I threw it away and vowed never to buy HP again. My dad bought an HP all in one wireless printer/scanner/copier. You had to have an app, loaded with more pop up and not windows. It didn't work without a cable or with one. Returned it for him since it was hours of frustration with no results. The "help line" was staffed by people in "South Asia" who read painfully translated scripts and never could resolve anything. They had a good company, became greedy and ruined their products.

[@spaceageexp8679]

I’m late but HP didn’t split into a pc business and a printer business. They spun off their enterprise division into a new company

[@stage6fan475]

If you are old enough, this is very sad. HP was the very symbol of American Excellence before the personal computer revolution. There was some management guru (Tom Peters, I think) who was all over Public Television saying the solution to everything was be like HP. The gist was HP was the only American Company that looked like the then excellent and dominant Japanese super corporations. Well, lots of U.S. outfits have in fact been like HP, they have been run into the ground just like it.

[@frankgerlach4467]

HP essentially died/disintegrated with her founder's death, or shortly after. German companies have been much better on this aspect, if you look at R+S, BOSCH, BASF, BAYER, ...

[@jovsta]

I deployed HP Enterprise software for over 15 years, and they were generally the best in their domain, but failed to execute and market new versions and visions of the integrated solutions from their acquisitions (Mercury, Opsware, Peregrine). Yes, the big mistake was not performing the correct DD before buying Autonomy, but fundamentally it's the lack of leaderships over many years. Poor vision, can't execute. The HP Enterprise Management and Monitoring software were leaps and bound to what I have to stitch together with the current Cloud solutions. HP had jewels in their assets but failed to see it.

[@thegamerwitch4669]

I have an HP laptop and a scanner from 2012 that I still use today as a hobby. 2 years later, the fans stopped working and HP fixed them for free, including shipping. Sad to see them go Problem is, today there's a lot more of competition and people are buying more and more high end computers , and PC parts, something that HP doesn't offers

[@siyzerix]

HP simply offers crap value and nothing exiting. Look at high end gaming laptops, and you will see aorus giving you dual 1070 laptops each pulling 115w with an oc'd i7 in a laptop lighter than other gtx 1080 laptops all the way back in 2017. What did HP offer you? nothing. Even today, asus is starting to move to OLED on more and more of their laptops and HP being the relic, don't see any reason to offer glossy/OLED options on their gaming laptops. They neither have very impressive high end gaming laptops. HP also doesn't particularly make the best ink printers, often breaking down and just being crap to use. Laserprinters are fine from them though.

[@AR-rg2en]

@@siyzerix I thought HP Spectre was popular

[@digitig]

Last year I bought a HP inkjet printer, and it was such a nightmare to use that I was actually relieved when it failed after less than a year so I could get a refund. Only to discover that the only way to remove the marketing software the printer setup had installed on my computer - according to HP itself - was to do a system restore to a point before I installed the software.

[@stephenwabaxter]

I had a preference for HP since they introduced the first consumer Deskjet 500. It was a toss up between the HP and a Canon inkjet but I believed the HP had the edge and I had great service from it. More recently I needed a photo printer and found HP offered none - bought Epson and very impressed. I now have a second Epson Ink Tank printer and all remaining HP printers went to charity!

[@ctclardy]

I worked for a computer company called Wang Laboratories back then in the late 60s and early 70s and HP was our main competitor... they were well respected in the engineering field and it was hard to sell against them but Wang's quality and abilities were comparable and even better in some areas, especially word processing... Wang is long gone... Dr. Wang's playboy son eventually took over and ran the company into the ground.

[@nandi123]

I knew people who worked at Wang. They were way ahead of their time. It is a tragedy they were destroyed by stupid management but it happens frequently. Wang, HP, DEC, Sun, Polaroid, Kodak, Bell Labs, GE, DuPont ...In my youth I would have never believed these giants would fall.

[@frankgerlach4467]

The children of HP were allowed to coast on their nice hobbies. Not really better, either.

[@F15ElectricEagle]

"From Innovation to Irrelevance." As Philips will say: Don't feel so bad HP. We have so much in common.

[@frankgerlach4467]

As Rohde+Schwarz would say: stick to your core and keep doing !

[@stephenwabaxter]

I owned several HP printers and they were all very good. However they recently discontinued the Pagewide line with no replacement. I have completed a switch to Epson as they are innovative, have a huge range and great performance.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Ah, so you’re the reason!! Haha jk

[@justthisonce223]

The pagewide were solid. We still maintain the product line but not for long. Think they just weren't that popular.

[@kbhasi]

Interesting, as I'm guessing the problems are with the consumer DeskJet line where HP seem to prey on non-tech-savvy people only looking at the price, such as my dad in 2014. I'd still buy a different brand following recommendations made to other users in Reddit comments.

[@bvssrsguntur6338]

I worked for HP in 2011 i.e. 12 yrs ago when they Mark Hurd fired 50%. Leo came in and said we will diversify to software and did a very bad acquisition Autonomy. Last I heard they are doing well with 3D printers. But it sounds like they are still struggling.

[@hippocleides7105]

Didn't discuss Carly Fiorina's dumpster fire takeover of Compaq. Doubled revenue and halved profit. Truly a genius move! That's really when it started to go downhill imo

[@spaghetti5914]

This string of shitty female ceos, especially in tech companies, is embarassing for women who actually got skill

[@dylanf3108]

Is that the Carly Fionrina I am thinking of? The one that tried to run in 2016?

[@hippocleides7105]

@DylanRex Yup! The same. When she tried to pretend to be an "acute business mind" I just laughed 😂 I remember my town being hollowed out by the cuts that had to happen after they took on Compaq, and I was only 8 when that happened. But I still remembered enough to remind people of that in 2016!

[@gabrielebianchi8976]

My first printer was an HP and at the time was sold also with a CD to print Harry Potter (HP) cartoons and graphics. It was literally "drinking" their expensive ink cartridges. The last time I wanted to print something it made me replace all the cartriges and then stoped at "initialisation" phase, rebooted, called a technician nothing changed. Never again a HP printer. My current work laptop is an HP which is not bad at all. Wehen I was a kid my grandfather had an IBM laptop, a little clunky but it had a black and white printer incorporated, I'm curious if it might be a good idea to bring back.

[@frankgerlach4467]

Just get yourself an honest japanese printer.

[@nick066hu]

Of those I have ever had HP brand devices, the last one ended up in the trash 10 years ago, it was less than a year old, an otherwise fully functioning multifunction printer-scanner when one day it refused scanning saying on its tiny screen that for scanning it needs that I buy new ink cartridges. I immediately threw the whole thing in the trash, never ever touched anything HP in my life. HP is a scam. Shame on those CEOs, Heaad of Sales, Marketing Dept, whoever's idea it was that scamming your customers is the way to go.

[@Sykxezn]

their laptops are made to break and fail, they always have, every model i have bought

[@boredcryptek5513]

Honestly loved my last HP laptop so much I bought a new HP laptop. The dev one because I wanted to encourage expansion into Linux. Though they discontinued the product a few weeks after. Hope they figure something out.

[@Manicsar1]

We sell only HP desktops and laptops to our clients. My personal laptop is an HP Omen.

[@ducksongfans]

all my laptops have been hp

[@tablettablet83]

I am had hp notebook 15 windows 8.1 but I am upgraded to 10

[@H-Shop]

You're one of the people I hate because I'm not in the US to grab a DevOne :( But it's okay, I got the Elitebook 840 G8 Aero and got surprised about the amount of upgrade options for a mere 1.1kg, wished HP continued releasing more of these magnesium laptops.

[@MissyMidna]

Funny enough I bought* a dell gaming laptop and returned it with in the first month just to swap it out with HP's new entry level gaming line the HP Victus. Was a great laptop and reminded me that they aren't all that awful as much of the tech reviewers say they are. If its between buying an HP or Dell product I'd rather buy* HP.

[@v8pilot]

After the exit of Hewlett and Packard from the scene, the company suffered from a succession of dysfunctional boards of directors coupled with takeovers that diluted the culture of the company and made no sense strategically. One of the first of these was the take over of Apollo when HP was 4th in Unix Workstations. After that the greatest catastrophe was the appointment of Fiorina who, as a smokescreen for her failures, engineered the merger with Compaq. What would have made sense would have been to get out of the PC market where profit margins were much smaller than HP normally achieved. The merger with Compaq destroyed what was left of the HP company culture.

[@frankgerlach4467]

Apollo takeover was 10 years before the founders died. HP was a powerhouse then.

[@v8pilot]

@@frankgerlach4467 Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were both retired by then. Packard later came back when it was clear the company had become overrun with committees and bureaucracy. John Young was essentially fired although it was presented as a well-earned retirement.

[@bluezaton]

HPs 3D printer technology has great applications for the medical field, supporting supply chains, and lowering costs for other businesses with more efficient, less wasteful methods of creating products. Once upon a time, many people thought Microsoft was a dead company, so things could change given time.

[@MichaelMarquez-m3b]

You should have discussed their spinoff of Agilent which was the original part of the company.

[@rockets4kids]

You completely missed one major point here: HP spun off all the good parts of the company as Agilent.

[@Trevor_Austin]

The rot started in the late eighties. Instead of building great printers, calculators, PC’s etc. they tried to “add value” but instead spent a fortune adding things nobody wanted. When that didn’t work they tried to sell the most valuable thing on the planet - printer ink.

[@leesnider]

This missed the real cause of the death of HP. The company lost its soul after the death of Dave Packard. IC manufacturing was moved to Singapore to company called Charter. The majority of the company split and became Agilent Technologies. The computer division took the name and ran it into the dirt.

[@cuthomas4664]

I'm a loyal HP laptop user for the last 13 years. Still using a HP laptop daily, but I can feel the downward trend interm of quality seriously for the last 3-4 generations of business laptop. HP computer is a victim of American doing business mindset: cut cost at all cost, exploit the brand until nothing left, zero customer interaction. So sad!

[@legodoug6046]

I had a Chrome book 14" in 2022/23 and had to send it back for repair 3 times in two months. Will never get any H/P products any more. H/P was a great product till 2015.

[@AngelDarthNet]

in 2040 HP buys HPE , in 2050 buys Keysight , in 2060 Buys Agilent , Hewlett-Packad is born

[@whatdadogdoin7531]

I once used a HP monitor for 10 years without any issues. That's still sitting in the closet in my room. It can still run but the display now shows a vertical green line and the display itself is somehow peeling away. So I switched to a g7 odyssey 4k last year. Before that I was using the same g7 but the curved panel. Also when I was buying my first gaming laptop I really considered the rtx 2060 hp omen. That thing really appealed to me a lot.

[@hankhillsnrrwurethra]

HPE just posted record quarterly profits. You screwed this one. Really ought to take it down and have another go.

[@ArduinoRR]

HP is a bittersweet story. I'm an Electrical Engineer and HP alumni 1981-1991. Loved their logic analyser in college with button menu instead of the toggle switch alternative. Worked on the HP 3000 systems, which I understand was one of their speculative endeavors. Maybe they couldn't stomach competing with Tektronix, etc. - computers drew them into a rather strange place. But while I was there, loved "The HP Way" culture. I subsequently had an HP Laserjet 5MP for over ten years, awesome reliability. Never loved their PCs, prefering IBM/Lenovo or home-built systems with generic components. I miss HP, sniff!

[@frankgerlach4467]

HP 3000 was a huge success, so was PA RISC and HP-UX. Laser- and Inkjetprinters were true innovation then. But then the founders died and all went south.

[@twoshedsjackson6478]

Every printer I have owned since 1991 has been HP. But HP Instant Ink is such a racket that I will never buy another.

[@johnweir9447]

Missed a perfect opportunity to show Ross yelling "pivot!" on a stairwell while failing to get a couch into his apartment in one piece....

[@lavalamp6410]

I don't understand what the commentator meant when he said one of the founders went to university to play sports, that is like saying they joined a gymnasium to drink beer. What is the point of sports in a university? It won't get anyone a job, studying engineering or medicine or physics would have real world benefits, but sports??? Unless I'm missing something, that would be useless, unless it was needed for an instructor in a gymnasium. But don't know.

[@gslim7337]

HP Calculators, HP Calculators HP Calculators. That is what made HP a household name in the late 70s

[@boblangill6209]

I remember a mad scramble at college for the HP35. In 1972, it was the first handheld that could do the calculations needed for science and engineering. It sold so well that HP later sent rebates to early adopters. And the build quality, things like gold contacts, there may be some that still work today.

[@breezeokami7475]

I don't completely agree, at least its Dream Color screen is still the best to date, and even Apple can't replace it

[@GazzaBoo]

It happens to many companies who fail to spot and adapt to new trends and desperately cling to the past. Next is having bean-counters running them rather than engineers who understand the core business. Take away investment in new developments and innovation, add way too many worthless middle managers, place emphasis on the wrong areas of the business, and not knowing when to cut your losses before a catastrophic fall forces your hand. HP is just one of thousands of erstwhile giants that have fallen by the wayside or been merger-ed into oblivion. Even Apple was on the verge of collapse and got lucky. Most don't.

[@MathaGoram]

A dysfunctional board, dishonest top-level executives and incompetent middle management made a good recipe for the Gray Lady of Silicon Valley. Microsoft and IBM were able to regroup (industry loves the word "reinvent") with different strategies. Randy Mott is the best example of the leading causes of HP's decline. He has a clear formula that suckers most CEOs (Walmart, Dell, HP, GM). Most of the incompetent senior managers and directors (from 2003) who stuck around till 2012 became VPs (Peter Principle at its worst?)! These people ensured that their sycophants tagged along. The inability to distinguish themselves (how's Agilent doing?) from the crowd meant being at the mercy of the ODMs. If Wall St was happy but entry level managers were leaving in droves, it didn't matter. Wonderful case study opportunities for budding MBA students using the actions of top-level MBA (including Harvard alumni) graduates at HP. Don't blame it on the commodity business when ample opportunities existed with an overloaded Mergers, Acquisitions, Divestiture and Opportunities (MADO) department at HP.

[@katrinabryce]

Most of HP's money came from selling printer ink. That looks like it will go the same way as Kodak's business in selling camera film.

[@captainz9]

I worked for almost a decade at Perkin-Elmer, formerly a big name in analytical instruments, gas chromatography, early into the DNA scene, etc. Their optics division started downhill after the Hubble fiasco and is now a Collins/Raytheon subdivision I think, their Semiconductor group is now part of SVG, etc. As we used to joke in the 90s they said they were "focusing on their core business"...of going out of business. After decades of layoffs and sales of pieces to other companies they are a shadow of what they once were, basically just sold off for the name eventually.

[@frankgerlach4467]

ZEISS apparently did much better...

[@lawrenceking4144]

The major problem with hp were the undercover limiters they put on their hardware setups. For a computer enthusiast, you could not expand on any hp system you bought because they intentionally blocked any upgrade potential. This caused people with any type of computer knowledge to not trust ANYTHING hp had their hands it. If you are in the technology area you have to cater to people with technical skills and knowledge. Their were never able to reach or keep these people because they insisted on being basic.

[@carldrogo9492]

Fun Fact: Professor William Shockley was a Clansman.

[@blayzej]

HP quit too soon on their new product categories. Their tablet had wireless charging, something that only Google is just now about to replicate. They also made a Windows phone with some great tech and Dex-like mode, which would've made a potentially top Android phone, but they discontinued it within a year or so. These days printers and laptops are not enough to survive regardless of quality.

[@frankgerlach4467]

Especially given that the innovation happens at MSFT, INTEL, ARM, Qualcomm and so on. Almost zero HP innovation.

[@Salvadorbalihai24]

I bought my HP15C calculator in 1983 and I'm still using it today. Maybe HP was a little too good at some things?

[@mbhug]

Sorry to say but this video is extremely poorly researched. Many of the statements are incorrect or out of context. For example, HP split into HP Inc. (consumer products company) and HPE (enterprise products like servers, storage, networking and SW). HPE has just recently built Frontier, the worlds fastest super computer at oak ridge national labs breaking the exascale barrier. HPE has also bought several SW companies to built a comprehensive SW portfolio in AI, which it delivers as a service through a what is called GreenLake.

[@FrancisDoubleA]

tell that to my 2017 hp laptop, its brittle and laggy like hell

[@jonny777bike]

With how they treat customers who buy their printers they deserve to go bankrupt.

[@chang-kp9sp]

HP is classic example of not innovating itself . They have given up customer focus instead more focus on payout to executives who know nothing about technology innovation.

[@emmanuelgabion2534]

All their laptops have terrible heat management. Runs like a hair blower and still their notebooks heat up like a stove it's gonna cook your lap. When you go full performance, their fan sounds like a jet engine🔥🔥🔥

[@m2useinu]

It feels like all they wanted to do was take your money and stopped caring about any quality at all.

[@frankgerlach4467]

Welcome to the MBA world.

[@AlessandroGenTLe]

Well I'm in the business of infrastructure projects for companies, and I've to say that, while Dell has some advantage considering their offer for fully integrated ipecongergent systems, HP isn't irrelevant, especially after the acquisition of Aruba networks and the absurd supply crisis of Cisco...

[@zhongxina2614]

It's not really that they lost their way but they changed their ways, instead of trying to be a public brand they're changing to be a more undisclosed brand. It's like investing in something else. HP is actually doing very well currently.

[@frankgerlach4467]

Maybe true, but in the last 20 years they tried hard to go bankrupt.

[@eddyeroyal6024]

Me and others worked for GM/EDS/HP/HPE and its sad how the company we worked after 15 to 20 years.

[@JohnGotts]

I only own one HP product, but it is a beast: a 20 year old double-sided laser printer, good as new. Trouble is I have almost no need to print anything in 2023. I didn't think much of HP laptops. I thought Toshiba, Sony, and IBM all had them beat. HP was on the low end with Dell. 1995-2010 era. Nowadays all laptops are piss poor, and you wear them out in a year or two. So it doesn't matter what you buy.

[@romabu2041]

HP clearly has many enemies after massively selling their mid tier laptops with those 5400RPM HDDs inside in late 2010s

[@shedwork]

Similar story as Boeing, let the bean counters run the company, not the engineers.

[@JamesMcGillis]

HP experienced layoffs and attrition from the early 1990s and onward. Even their Bay Area ski club accepted former employees and "friends" on their planned trips to Sun Valley, Idaho, just to keep their volume discounts.

[@frankgerlach4467]

The H and P children were not groomed to properly take over.

[@markproulx1472]

When HP abandoned the test and measurement business, I knew that they were done for. There is a special place in Hell for the people who were responsible for this decision.

[@marconoboa1154]

I bought an hp laptop in 2010 and other in 2015 the difference in build quality in both of them is abysmal the 2010 one still runs fine, the 2015 started falling apart months after the purchase and now it barely stays on even when plugged in. I am never buying an hp laptop again

[@who2u333]

I believe that the last innovative tech that HP pioneered was locking printer owners into HP branded ink. Every one else copied them, so it must have been the right move.

[@kbhasi]

Yep Another 'innovation' being forcing customers into subscriptions right out of the box by locking the included ink to that subscription via software locks, at least according to posts I've seen on Reddit.

[@frankgerlach4467]

MBA "innovation"

[@oouziii4679]

They are discussing what a sad excuse for a company, they gatekeep old drivers so you have no choice but to buy a new computer when your old one becomes unfixable. They ask you to write a survey on the site, yet there no way to submit it. They just left that button out, I guess... it deplorable behavior. I hope they fall miserablely they'd deserve it

[@RobbersIQ]

Unbelievable how bad my experience continues to be ordering things from HP. Every time we try and order an HP server we are sent running back to Dell where things are much more straightforward.

[@autumnjeserich2689]

I have a HP linear labg power supply from 1962 and use it everyday for my work. Its an absolute tank of a device, wish they made stuff like that now

[@RealLaone]

I'm crazy for their angular Pavilion Gaming Laptops designs. Sad they going down, guess it's hard to know a bad design until it's too late.

[@chrispythebot]

Imo the best computers are HP's because my HP's are still running despite their age

[@zUltra3D]

This feels like a heartbreak. My first ever computer was an HP Compaq d530, and the only laptops I kept are all HP. I hope they can pull themselves out of this mess

[@olavberrig4548]

The keysight network analyzers are still the best quality. But I am afraid they will remove the local visual basic programming and replace it with external programming that doesn’t work as so many other network analyzer manufacturers have done.

[@rebeccaliew2247]

How ironic...I'm typing my comments now using a HP laptop. Company's laptop that uses customised parts from the US itself, and then imported into my company. Maybe HP isn't atop choice for many, but it is still doing well. Too bad it is surviving only now, not thriving.

[@erichstocker8358]

DEC and HP are companies that show the danger when bean-counters and professional managers take over from the engineers that created the companies and the philosophy of the companies. These leeches on high-tech companies do not understand the culture necessary for tech innovation. They are only interested in their salary and bonuses and increasing stock prices. This eventually leads to drop in stock prices. Another hi-tech company facing this same issue is Boeing. Bean-counters and lawyers should stay in the place in the tech companies where they belong and not run these companies. I won't even discuss what I think about the value of "professional" managers. HP as an engineering company made wonderful equipment. It has lost that.

[@ianlee6416]

Im not too sure about the more expensive laptops but my 2016 budget hp laptop had bad battery management circuitry, damaging the battery and having to replace much more frequently. A budget 2016 Lenovo on the other hand had not seen a battery replacement until the HP went through 2. Older HP laser printers, without the software lock, still the best for reliability and value

[@frankgerlach4467]

MBA management of a computer company !

[@lalitnarayan9912]

Serves them right. It is Karma for selling all the printers scamming customers with their Ink Jet cartridges.

[@OneEyedJacker]

HP calculator were the best in the world. RPN cut problems down to size efficiently. Very disappointed to learn of its decline.

[@TechWorldOrder]

Did you know despite HP’s shortcomings some U.S. state agencies still use HP as their main pick for work computers/devices. For example, the CHP still use HP devices for desktop devices. Not sure about other agencies though.

[@h.mandelene3279]

If u went to Home Depot lately, they replaced all PC's and regsiters with HP's. Verizon also uses HP desktops\laptops.

[@SivaranjanGoswami]

It's surprising to me. I didn't know that HP is in such a pathetic condition. In our office, all employees get an HP laptop (except the mobile developers who get macbooks). My personal laptop is also an HP. When I was in the university (doing my masters and PhD) all desktops in all the labs were of HP. I was always thinking that HP was doing really well.

[@normmcrae1140]

My Brother-in-law worked for HP for many years.... I wonder if they could see this from the INSIDE?

[@KevinInPhoenix]

HP bet heavily on the Intel Itanium and killed their own PA-RISC processor line. This was a really bad bet. They built a line of very high end Itanium servers and are still supporting them through 2025. They also announced an ambitious project called The Machine. Despite a lot of hype the project was never developed. HP just made too many missteps and never followed through on their grand plans.

[@rishonjr1215]

Hp was the go-to company to buy printers from. Every printer I own is from HP. Even if they die, they could still live if they shifted to a printer manufacturing company.

[@jmlin501]

If they don’t improve their attitude towards consumers by getting rid of plan obsolescence of ink on inkjet printer. But I think they would not.

[@sidarthg2477]

But not Indian PC buyers. They still think that only Dell and HP makes quality laptops and I don't know why. They both are ridiculously expensive that I don't even consider taking a look at those brands and my purchase has been a IdeaPad and now legion. Both offer very good value for the money spent and my old IdeaPad is still very much functional