--- title: The R&D Metric Mark Hurd and HP Got Wrong | daily.dev description: Former HP CTO Phil McKinney recounts a 2005 confrontation with CEO Mark Hurd over R&D spending metrics. Hurd was fixated on R&D as a percentage of revenue,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-r-d-metric-mark-hurd-and-hp-got-wrong-orhxvg715 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The R&D Metric Mark Hurd and HP Got Wrong | daily.dev og:description: Former HP CTO Phil McKinney recounts a 2005 confrontation with CEO Mark Hurd over R&D spending metrics. Hurd was fixated on R&D as a percentage of revenue,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-r-d-metric-mark-hurd-and-hp-got-wrong-orhxvg715 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/OrHxvG715.png og:image:alt: The R&D Metric Mark Hurd and HP Got Wrong og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The R&D Metric Mark Hurd and HP Got Wrong **[Tech Lead Digest](https://daily.dev/sources/techleaddigest)** · 13 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Former HP CTO Phil McKinney recounts a 2005 confrontation with CEO Mark Hurd over R&D spending metrics. Hurd was fixated on R&D as a percentage of revenue, wanting HP's PC group to match Acer's 0.8% rather than aspire to Apple's 4%. McKinney argues this metric is fundamentally flawed — it measures input, not output, and has no proven correlation with innovation performance. Using Acer as a benchmark while ignoring Apple led to systematic R&D cuts that hollowed out HP's innovation pipeline over the following decade. The post also reveals how HP gave Apple critical retail distribution for the iPod, surrendering a 30-year competitive asset. McKinney reflects that he had the right argument but the wrong language — he needed to speak in CEO terms (margin, risk, competitive position) rather than CTO terms. The episode teases a follow-up on better R&D metrics discovered in HP's historical archives. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Autodesk’s John Walker explained HP and IBM in 1991](https://daily.dev/posts/autodesk-s-john-walker-explained-hp-and-ibm-in-1991-ochdbfgyp) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [HP's Innovation Spirit and How It Died](https://daily.dev/posts/hp-s-innovation-spirit-and-how-it-died-z9xioqall) · Tech Lead Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why Most Organizations Aren't Funding Innovation](https://daily.dev/posts/why-most-organizations-aren-t-funding-innovation-dughxokxo) · Tech Lead Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-r-d-metric-mark-hurd-and-hp-got-wrong-orhxvg715) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The R&D Metric Mark Hurd and HP Got Wrong","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-r-d-metric-mark-hurd-and-hp-got-wrong-orhxvg715","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-r-d-metric-mark-hurd-and-hp-got-wrong-orhxvg715"},"datePublished":"2026-03-29T23:14:15.795Z","dateModified":"2026-03-29T23:14:42.244Z","description":"Former HP CTO Phil McKinney recounts a 2005 confrontation with CEO Mark Hurd over R&D spending metrics. 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