Fear of failure
Cherish failure!
Celebrate failure?
“Fail Fast, Fail Often.” Others say it’s “Fail Better.” And others say it’s “Fail Forward.”
“To what writer, besides Ayn Rand, do the business-minded techies and tech-minded businessmen of 21st-century Silicon Valley look for their inspiration? The name of Samuel Beckett may not, at first, strike you as an obvious answer — unless, of course, you know the origin of the phrase "Fail better." It appears five times in Beckett's 1983 story "Worstward Ho," the first of which goes like this: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." The sentiment seems to resonate naturally with the mentality demanded by the world of tech startups, where nearly every venture ends in failure, but failure which may well contain the seeds of future success.”
By Colin Marshall for OPEN CULTURE
from https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/los/bib/feh/21891928.html
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some AI
Despite this, the reality is that the majority of startups in Silicon Valley do fail. According to some estimates, up to 90% of startups in the area fail within five years.27
The culture of Silicon Valley encourages entrepreneurs to "fail fast and furiously," meaning they should quickly identify and abandon unsuccessful ideas to focus on what works.4 This mindset is designed to foster innovation and resilience, but it can also be psychologically taxing for those who repeatedly fail without achieving success.7
Some notable examples of failed Silicon Valley startups include Theranos, a blood-testing company that was found to have faulty technology and is now under federal criminal investigation2 ; Zenefits, whose CEO resigned amid regulatory compliance concerns and allegations of a problematic company culture2 ; and Fab, an e-commerce start-up that was once valued at $900 million but had to shut down its European operations and lay off a significant portion of its staff.2
While failure is often celebrated in Silicon Valley as a step towards eventual success, the financial and emotional toll on individuals who repeatedly fail can be substantial.7 Some entrepreneurs describe the pressure to maintain a positive facade and the difficulty of securing funding after multiple failures.7
Despite these challenges, the culture of Silicon Valley continues to emphasize the importance of resilience and learning from failure, encouraging entrepreneurs to persevere and adapt in the face of setbacks.47
Theranos: A blood-testing company that was found to have faulty technology and is now under federal criminal investigation.2
Zenefits: An HR software company whose CEO resigned amid regulatory compliance concerns and allegations of a problematic company culture.2
Fab: An e-commerce start-up that was once valued at $900 million but had to shut down its European operations and lay off a significant portion of its staff.2
Appiterate: A mobile marketing company that was acquired by Flipkart but closed two years after launching.5
Delicious: A pioneer in social bookmarking tools that was overtaken by rivals and ultimately acquired by Pinboard at a reduced price.5
Playdate: An on-demand social networking app that grew to a team of 7 and 5,000 monthly active users but eventually ran out of money.5
Singulution: A point of sale & business management solution for multi-location vendors that failed after 10 months of work and $30,000 spent.5
Swipes: A company that developed productivity tools and went through all stages and experiences but eventually failed.5
Juicero: A juice company that packed fresh organic fruits but was found to have a machine that was useless.5
Kno: A company that introduced double-paneled e-textbooks but failed after raising $80M.5
Munchery: A gourmet food delivery service that failed to deliver the promised experience and build a profitable business model.5
Navdy: A company that provided a display that projected GPS in cars but failed due to a saturated market and unsatisfactory customer needs.5
Netscape: One of the most significant internet applications in history that eventually failed.
“This brings us to another key difference between French and Anglo-Saxon management. Indeed, Anglo-Saxons show more flexibility and agility to better adapt to the various evolutions of an increasingly turbulent environment. The spirit here is more pragmatic. Facts are preferred to ideas.”
from https://www.absparis.com/blog/analyzing-anglo-saxon-managerial-model
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“For about a millennium, the English have been considering each new case by comparing it with precedents, a bit as Sir Christopher Wren built St Paul’s on the site of the former church that had burnt down.
Which issues does this case raise? Aha, then it must be like X. But it is different, so it must also be like Y. And so on.
The process is inductive: The Anglo-Saxon mind starts with the particular, searches for a general principle, returns to the particular, adjusts the general principle, and so forth.”
from https://andreaskluth.org/2010/04/25/french-anglo-saxon-ways-of-thinking/
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Also
Truth and the privilege of wasting time
Page 220-221 in “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari:
If you want to go deeply into any subject, you need a lot of time, and in particular you need the privilege of wasting time. You need to experiment with unproductive paths, to explore dead ends, to make space for doubts and boredom, and to allow little seeds of insight to slowly grow and blossom. If you cannot afford to waste time — you will never find the truth.
Apropos allowing little seeds of insight to slowly grow and blossom, compare: “What Gregor Mendel tells us about thinking.“
from https://andreaskluth.org/blog/
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