The Power of Experimentation

Every great invention and scientific discovery was born from experimentation. Take Marie Curie, who was a relentless experimenter. Through experimentation, she became the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, in 1903, for Physics. Further, she was the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in different sciences when she won the 1911 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. She said, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

Experimentation is not only a cornerstone of science, but it is also critical to success in politics, athletics, and business. Companies often have great ideas, but their inability to experiment easily leads to the design of safe and often uninspiring experiences for their customers. In a world that is changing faster than ever before — a world where a customer starts a task on one device and finishes it on another, a world where customers expect companies to know who they are — companies can’t afford to play it safe or they’ll be surpassed by their competition. As leaders in this constantly evolving world, our job is not to have all the answers. Our job is to enable our organization to be brave and experiment.

- Dan Siroker, Founder and CEO of Optimizely