Success Quote by David Packard

Packard’s advice reads like a pep talk, but it’s really a management doctrine disguised as encouragement. “Take risks” and “Ask big questions” aren’t generic self-help prompts in the HP founder’s mouth; they’re a direct argument against the corporate reflex toward incrementalism. He’s telling engineers, managers, and would-be founders that safe bets don’t just limit upside, they quietly shrink the imagination. The line moves fast, almost staccato, as if urgency itself is part of the message: momentum matters more than perfect planning.

The key move is his reframing of mistakes. In most workplaces, errors are evidence of incompetence; in Packard’s worldview, they’re proof of reach. That flips the incentive system. If failure is expected on the edge of innovation, then the real shame is playing small enough to avoid it. Subtext: the organization has to build psychological safety and tolerate short-term messiness, or it will never earn long-term breakthroughs. It’s also a warning to leaders who punish failure while demanding originality: you can’t have both.

Context sharpens the intent. Packard helped build Hewlett-Packard from garage-era tinkering into a pillar of postwar American tech, alongside the “HP Way,” which prized decentralized decision-making and trust in technical talent. This quote is that ethos condensed: ambition paired with permission. Not “be reckless,” but institutionalize learning at the frontier. In an era when companies love to brand themselves as innovative, Packard is blunt about the real price tag: visible mistakes, on purpose, as the cost of reaching farther than your competitors dare.