Google as the New HP

Marty Cagan argues that Hewlett-Packard was Silicon Valley's greatest product company because its founders built a culture and structure for continually breeding new products and businesses. By splitting growing operations into autonomous divisions that behaved like startups, HP spawned thousands of products and hundreds of companies. Cagan sees Google as carrying that same product-driven spirit. He then contends HP declined after its founders left, when the board hired a sales-oriented outsider who moved product creation to the margins. The piece matters as a warning that a company's product DNA is easy to lose when leadership stops understanding what made it great.

01Key takeaways

• Protect the culture and mechanisms that generate new products, not just the current flagship product.
• Keep divisions small and autonomous enough to act like startups, with clear accountability such as quarterly progress reviews.
• When leadership changes, make sure new executives understand what made the company succeed before reshaping it.
• Avoid replacing product leaders with people whose background points away from product creation.
• A product company's identity is part of its DNA, and it can erode quietly when that identity is not defended.

02Key sections

HP's product legacy

Cagan presents HP as the valley's model product company, with a record of breakthrough products across many markets that few others matched. He contrasts it with one-product companies that coast on a single success.

Autonomous divisions as a startup engine

Hewlett and Packard split growing businesses into loosely connected divisions, sometimes housing new teams in separate buildings. HP acted like a venture funder, asking for quarterly progress while letting teams pursue markets their own way.

Google as the successor

Cagan admires Larry Page and Sergey Brin for the same passion for creating great products, and he praises Google and Apple for their drive to solve problems better.

Decline after the founders

Once the founders retired, HP lacked product leadership and turned to an outside sales executive. She reoriented the company toward centralized sales and distribution, pushing product creation aside.

Losing the product people

Many strong product leaders left and were replaced by people chosen to execute the new direction. Cagan notes that the leader did not understand what had made the company great.

03From the post

“A partnership dedicated to teaching best practices to product teams and product leaders”

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.