Comments on: Max Levchin Says Embracing Failure Is Dumb

By: How to Succeed? Try and Fail! And Try Again. | Life Back West

How to Succeed? Try and Fail! And Try Again. | Life Back West — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:56:28 +0000

[...] failure, as Max Levchin one of my favorite younger CEOs has observed is a dumb idea.Learn from it rather than avoid [...]

By: Looooooooocifer!

Looooooooocifer! — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 22:36:54 +0000

All of which are probably ranked on Google.

By: Robert Zion

Robert Zion — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 10:17:31 +0000

Trolling Google is not dumb, you get lot of page views eh?

By: Bruce Lynn

Bruce Lynn — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:23:31 +0000

Of course ‘failure is not good’. That’s why stories about its counterintuitive positive impacts interest the press like a ‘man bites dog story’. Surprising to hear Levchin express such a myopic perspective especially as an entrepreneur. The whole point of embracing failure is to seek the ‘silver lining’ dividends in the ‘not-good’-ness (if you shun failure entirely then you miss these), as well as to broaden the outlook to a perspective that realises that sometimes failure is a painful but necessary ingredient in a larger success.

By: Bruce Lynn

Bruce Lynn — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 06:47:28 +0000

The reason why people have been intrigued by the counterintuitive concept of embracing ‘failure’ is for the very reason that failure is not good. So it is sort of a ‘man bites dog story’. Everyone know about the not-goodness of failure. But in fearing, avoiding, and otherwise decrying that stuff of ‘failure’, more current perspectives are that failures often have important dividends of silver linings that get missed when failure is completely derided. Also, while the failure itself might be bad, the large context around the failure puts it into perspective that the failure is simply a painful, not-good, but necessary ingredient to a larger success.

By: don

don — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 04:27:24 +0000

I agree

By: cosmicone

cosmicone — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:03:51 +0000

What I think what Eric Schmidt is emphasizing is that the company is willing to take risks, and risks often lead to failure. “We learn from our failures more than our successes”. But I also sense that failure only works beneficially for those who are aiming toward success. I think if one pursues failure for it’s own sake (as in a “Culture of Failure”) than it becomes a vice. Failure is positive only after it’s converted to knowledge and discarded. But tolerance of failure is essential in creating and innovating anything.

By: Phil

Phil — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 19:02:02 +0000

I would suggest to Max that “celebrating” or “embracing” failure is a bit of a misnomer. What is really being celebrated is /trying/ something — making an /effort/ to succeed, taking chances. And when you take a chance, you often fail. No one in their right mind is going to celebrate a failure, but if they gave it the ol’ college try, they can celebrate /that effort/. The initially ironic phrase has become twisted (at least in Max’s mind) to mean just the opposite of its intent. If English isn’t his native tongue, perhaps that would explain his confusion — it’s a subtle play on words.

By: jeepers

jeepers — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:19:49 +0000

He wasn’t the founder of paypal but that is for another conversation. journalists keep saying it so it must be true.

By: mylocator1

mylocator1 — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:47:49 +0000

Failure is my tuition.