Bill Hewlett was a smart man. He helped start a big company. He made tools that use power. He also gave much money to help schools. He loved the great outdoors too. Do you like to build things?
Bill Hewlett was a smart engineer. He helped start a big company named HP. He worked with a friend named Dave. They used a coin flip to pick names. One big success was making tools for a movie. Disney bought tools he made for a film. Bill also loved the outdoors. He liked to take photos of wildflowers. He gave much money to help schools and museums. He was a very kind leader.
Bill Hewlett was a famous American engineer. He helped start the HP Company. He worked with his friend, David Packard. They started the company in 1939. They even flipped a coin to pick the name order.
One big success came from a movie. Disney bought eight audio oscillators. These are tools that make sound waves. They used them for the film Fantasia.
Bill led HP in many ways. He was the president and the CEO. He believed in "The HP Way." This was a way of running a company. It focused on respecting workers, not just making money.
Bill also loved nature. He was a botanist, which is a person who studies plants. He took many photos of wildflowers. He gave much of his wealth to help others. He and his wife, Flora, started a large foundation. This group gives money to schools and museums. Bill died in 2001 at the age of 87.
Bill Hewlett was a famous American engineer. He helped build the Hewlett-Packard Company, which people often call HP.
He started this company with his friend, David Packard. They wanted to make tools that worked well. They even flipped a coin to decide whose name came first. This company became a very important part of technology history. It helped change how we use electronics every day.
Building a company involves many steps. First, Bill and David talked about their ideas in 1937. They officially started their partnership on January 1, 1939.
A big moment happened when Disney bought eight audio oscillators. An oscillator is a tool that makes sound waves. Disney used these tools to help make the movie Fantasia. This success helped the company grow very quickly.
Bill's journey began in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His father was a teacher at a medical school there.
Later, the family moved to San Francisco. Bill went to school at Stanford University. He earned his bachelor's degree there in 1934. He also studied at MIT to learn more about electrical engineering. These studies helped him become a great engineer.
Bill led HP for many years. He was the president from 1964 to 1977.
He also served as the CEO from 1968 to 1978. He believed in a special way of working called "The HP Way." This meant the company cared about its workers. It was not just about making money. They focused on respecting and helping every person.
Many people learned from Bill's work. A young Steve Jobs once called him for help.
Jobs was only twelve years old at the time. Bill gave him a summer job at the company. Even the creators of Apple computers used HP parts. Bill also loved nature and studied plants. He and his wife, Flora, gave much money to help schools and museums. He died in 2001 at the age of 87.
William Redington Hewlett was a prominent American engineer and entrepreneur. He is most famous for co-founding the Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly known as HP. Alongside his partner, David Packard, he helped shape the modern technology industry. Hewlett was not just a businessman; he was a dedicated scientist and a leader in his field. His work helped establish a new way for companies to operate and treat their employees.
Hewlett's journey into engineering began with a strong academic foundation. He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1913. His father, Albion Walter Hewlett, was a teacher at the University of Michigan Medical School. In 1916, the family moved to San Francisco when his father joined the faculty at Stanford Medical School. Hewlett attended Lowell High School, where he served as the Battalion Commander for the Army JROTC program. He later earned a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1934. He continued his advanced studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), earning a Master of Science in electrical engineering in 1936. He eventually returned to Stanford to receive a post-masters engineering degree in 1939.
The creation of Hewlett-Packard followed years of collaboration and shared ideas. While attending undergraduate classes taught by Fred Terman at Stanford, Hewlett met David Packard. The two men began discussing the possibility of starting their own company in August 1937. They officially founded the Hewlett-Packard Company as a partnership on January 1, 1939. Interestingly, they used a coin flip to decide the order of their names in the company title. Their first major commercial success involved the Walt Disney Company. Disney purchased eight audio oscillators, which are devices used to create electrical signals, designed by Hewlett. These oscillators were used during the production of the animated film *Fantasia*.
As the company grew, it developed a unique organizational philosophy known as "The HP Way." This corporate culture focused on more than just generating profit. It emphasized respecting and nurturing the employees who worked for the firm. Hewlett held several high-level leadership roles to maintain this vision. He served as the president of the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1954. Later, he acted as the president of HP from 1964 to 1977. He also served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from 1968 to 1978. Following his time as CEO, he remained involved as chairman of the executive committee until 1983.
Hewlett's influence extended to the next generation of technological innovators. A young Steve Jobs once called Hewlett's number from a phone book. Jobs was only twelve years old and needed parts for a frequency counter he was building. Impressed by the boy's initiative, Hewlett offered him a summer job assembling those very counters. Jobs later cited HP as one of the few companies built to last rather than just to make money. Even the founders of Apple, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, had connections to HP. Wozniak attempted to sell the Apple I computer to HP five times while working there. Although the deal did not happen, the early Apple computers were actually built using HP parts under a legal release.
Beyond his engineering career, Hewlett was a dedicated public servant and philanthropist. During World War II, he served as a Signal Corps Officer in the Army. After the war, he led the electronics section of the Development Division within the War Department Special Staff. He also participated in a special team that inspected Japanese industry. Hewlett and his wife, Flora, founded the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in 1966. This organization became one of the largest private foundations in the United States. He donated millions of dollars to museums, schools, and universities, including Stanford University.
In his personal life, Hewlett was an avid outdoorsman and a student of nature. He practiced amateur photography and was a dedicated botanist. He spent much of his time collecting samples of wildflowers and taking photographs of them. Some of his botanical collections were donated to the California Academy of Sciences. Hewlett died of heart failure in Palo Alto, California, on January 12, 2001, at the age of 87. His legacy continues through the many awards he received, such as the National Medal of Science in 1983. He was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1992.
Where will your curiosity go next?
More to explore
✨ What else?
Related topics you might enjoy
🪜 Step back
Simpler topics to build understanding
What is Nepedia?
A free, ad-free encyclopedia for children. Every article is written at five reading levels, so the same page works for a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old — use the level switcher above to see this one change. No account needed to read.