Mad Men Offices, Silicon Valley Style

I was going through my image archives and ran across these photos I hastily took with a cameraphone one time when I had a chance to visit Hewlett-Packard's HQ in Palo Alto, and see the offices of the founders, William Hewlett and David Packard. The offices have been preserved just as the founders left them when they retired, and they are a great time capsule within one of the most technologically advanced companies on the planet.

The two offices, back to back. They are in the building that now houses HP Labs.

Packard's office. There is a shared Japanese style garden you can just see through the window in the back:

Hewlett's desk. Notice anything missing? A PC perhaps?

But of course it does have a classic HP calculator.

It became a tradition for employees to leave money from countries they had visited on Bill's desk.

And lastly the executive washroom.

Overall you are struck by how relatively modest these offices are. How would, say, Ken Lay's office have looked in comparison?

AVP of Marketing Strategy Adam Richardson is the author of Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems are its Greatest Advantage. His book is the manual for leaders looking for clarity about the emerging challenges facing their businesses. You can follow Adam on Twitter @richardsona.