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Failure Was Always an Option for Elizabeth Holmes
- Bostonian 5y ago"As the Elizabeth Holmes trial for alleged fraud at her startup Theranos winds on, the biggest question is: When the company’s blood testing machines didn’t work, why didn’t she change tactics? Real entrepreneurs fail early and often. Ms. Holmes instead was stubborn and chose deception over failure. That’s a shame. Despite today’s IPO and SPAC fireworks, the truth is that in Silicon Valley most ideas fail. Heck, most companies fail. More than half of venture-capital investments are smoking holes in the ground. Fortunately, success often rises from the ashes of ruin. Some history of failure: Thomas Edison, the “Wizard of Menlo Park” (New Jersey, not California), had the hardest time finding a filament for his incandescent lightbulb. He tried bamboo, cedar and flax until he found that carbonized cotton worked. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,” Edison said. Fail until you succeed beats fake it till you make it. Then there is the computer mouse. The Douglas Engelbart version of 1968 was a crude wooden block on two wheels with three buttons. Xerox PARC came up with a better mouse using a metal ball and motion sensors. Steve Jobs wanted one, so Apple hired a design firm, which came up with over 25 prototypes, all failures, until a design in 1981 worked. Think of all the failed mice it took to create today’s curved mouse with multiple buttons, a scroll wheel and optical sensors. Speaking of failures, James Dyson made 5,127 prototypes over four years for his “cyclone” vacuum cleaner."
- RNCTX 5y agoAll nonsensical comparisons, thanks for nothing again, WSJ.