Uchikura & Co., LLC

I used to have a small glass plaque from Xerox Corporation, from the time when the company was at the height of its technology innovation driven by PARC (Palo Alto Research Center).

 

The plaque had only three simple words on it:

 

“Why?”
“Why not?”

 

Those two questions stayed with me. They capture the spirit of innovation better than any long speech or management philosophy.

 

When you ask “Why?”, you challenge assumptions.
When you ask “Why not?”, you open the door to doing something others believe cannot be done.

 

Many of the technologies we take for granted today—graphical user interfaces, the mouse, laser printing, Ethernet—came out of PARC because people there kept asking those two questions.

 

I have tried to keep that mindset in my own company. If we only build what is easy or obvious, we will end up competing only on price. Real innovation starts when someone asks the uncomfortable question:

 

Why not try something different?