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Meet Masahiro Hara, inventor of the QR code

142 sats \ 11 comments \ @deSign_r 18 Aug Design

Masahiro Hara, a quiet 35-year-old engineer working at Toyota factories who love playing Go during lunch breaks, is the one responsible for inventing the QR codes in 1994. His company wants to patent the quick-response code and charge royalties. Here's where Hara makes the decision that shocks everyone.

He gives it away. Completely free. No licensing fees. Nothing.

His colleagues think he's lost his mind. But Hara believes something bigger. If you want to change the world, you don't own it, you share it. That free decision just created the foundation of the cashless world we know today.

Sometimes the biggest wins come from giving everything away.

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102 sats \ 2 replies \ @brave 18 Aug

So basically, every time I scan a restaurant menu, I should thank a Toyota engineer on his Go break?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @deSign_r OP 18 Aug

yes

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @joyepzion 18 Aug

Proof that quiet engineers with lunch hobbies can change the world, shoutout to Hara for making life just a scan easier

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @Oxy 18 Aug

Stories like this remind me that some of the most impactful innovations come from people who prioritize purpose over profit. We use QR codes dozens of times a day without even thinking about it - that's the mark of truly transformative technology

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @deSign_r OP 18 Aug

Stories like this remind me of all the smart, greedy people that continue working in secrecy to protect revolutionary ideas that never reach more than 10 users. One of these is for example Chaum's ecash, never reached the public because he was focused on finding the way to monetize it selling it to banks. We lost 40 years of innovation thanks to it, then CASHU and FEDI arrived providing ecash on bitcoin to the masses.

The ability to leave the ego aside, work in public and build for the benefits of the whole is the key for the ideas to succeed.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 19 Aug

Good thing he left this open for use. Who knows what we would use instead?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 18 Aug

Probably, if he had patented it, qrs would have remained a niche and never been widely adopted.

While I was writing this, I remembered hearing that the happy birthday song had been patented and that this was probably a counterargument to my above claim.

So I checked it out and it turns out that the story is complicated

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @lunanto 18 Aug

He proved that sometimes the most disruptive strategy is radical generosity

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Zion 18 Aug

The irony is that Hara's 'loss' of potential patent money probably contributed to creating an economy worth trillions more than he ever could have captured alone. True abundance thinking in action

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @orto 18 Aug

Thank you!🧡🧡🧡

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Entrep 18 Aug

Incredible reminder that true innovation isn’t just about invention, it’s about generosity. Hara didn’t just change technology, he changed culture