The History of Hewlett-Packard In a small garage in the city of Palo Alto, California, a well known company was formed in 1938. That company soon became known as Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP). Under the partnership of William Hewlett and David Packard, then engineering graduates of Stanford University, the company was started with a mere $538 in capital. Earlier this month, Hewlett-Packard announced that it would split its company into two separate publicly owned corporations: The computer division and the testing and measuring division. “By making this move, we believe we can make two companies that