The collected thoughts of Mark Hurd

Mark Hurd went from running NCR to running what is now, arguably, the largest IT company in the world, HP. He must be doing something right so here are some collected thoughts of the great man taken from two sessions held this week at HP's gathering in Las Vegas (see story). And he likes numbers. Big numbers. Lots of big numbers. In fact he has an amazing command of big numbers.

1. How big can HP get? "Analysts estimate that HP will be roughly $100bn company." 2. What was wrong at HP before he strode into town? "At HP our costs were expanding quicker than our revenue. That is not a good situation." 3. What is right at HP, now he is in town? "Costs were the same at HP in 2007 that they were in 2005. We have been efficient and able to grow at the same time." 4. Wisdom. "When the supply chains breaks, bad stuff happens." 5. On R&D. "HP has had $20 bn in R&D in the last five years." 6. Numbers. "The company ships three printers every second. We ship two PCs a second. We ship a server every 10 seconds." 7. Why truth makes life simpler. "We have one version of the truth for HP." 8. On limitations. "People come to me with ideas for new products and sometime I have to say we can't do it. And I can't acquire everybody." HP bought another company on Monday. 9. On the environment. 10. On the difference in HP. "Twenty years ago roughly 70 percent of the company was hardware. Last year, roughly 70 percent was software.