3 ms·

Success is complex, Failure is a no-brainer

18 points by danielh 18y ago

swombat 18y ago
I'm not sure I fully buy this argument. First of all, it puts down failure as something inferior. Failure is a natural step to success. Calling it a no-brainer devalues its incredibly valuable teachings. I have a chance at being successful in my current start-up in part because of the issues I had in my previous one. Secondly, it over-simplifies the definition of success. Is wandering the oppressive halls of a Microsoft really success? Sure, for Bill Gates, Microsoft is a success. But it didn't become a success through the oppressiveness of its halls - the most valuable game-changing moves happened long before it was a huge mega-corporation, when it was busy building things like MS DOS and Windows and setting up all the dominos to fall in the right place. It's an interesting thought overall, but I don't really see the value of applying it so directly to business or careers.
- danielh 18y ago
  My understanding of the post is that one single mistake might be enough to ruin your business or career. To grow and succeed, you have to get everything right. Or at least the majority of things. And this gets more and more complex. I totally agree with you, failures can be very valuable, as long as you learn from them.
- MHollender 18y ago
  Agreed, but still, I think the point is that failure does not need no reason. Failure is the default option. Try to land a Boeing 747, you fail. You need to learn, practice and do well 100 different things and then you don't. When I started working in the ERP industry, I thought really, really hard why are we so often on the brink of failure. What are we doing wrong? There must be some trick to discover one day... and then it turned out isn't some trick: there are loads and loads of tricks. It's not that we did wrong what we did, but simply we did not do 20% percent of all things we should have did.
cmos 18y ago
When starting a company in the beginning it's really clear what success means: Hitting payroll and staying alive. Once you clear that hurdle it get's a lot more complicated. No longer is it black and white. Alive or Dead. It's actually easier to live on the edge, though far less desirable. Things are a lot more clear.

18 points by danielh 18y ago

I'm not sure I fully buy this argument. First of all, it puts down failure as something inferior. Failure is a natural step to success. Calling it a no-brainer devalues its incredibly valuable teachings. I have a chance at being successful in my current start-up in part because of the issues I had in my previous one. Secondly, it over-simplifies the definition of success. Is wandering the oppressive halls of a Microsoft really success? Sure, for Bill Gates, Microsoft is a success. But it didn't become a success through the oppressiveness of its halls - the most valuable game-changing moves happened long before it was a huge mega-corporation, when it was busy building things like MS DOS and Windows and setting up all the dominos to fall in the right place. It's an interesting thought overall, but I don't really see the value of applying it so directly to business or careers.

danielh 18y ago
My understanding of the post is that one single mistake might be enough to ruin your business or career. To grow and succeed, you have to get everything right. Or at least the majority of things. And this gets more and more complex. I totally agree with you, failures can be very valuable, as long as you learn from them.
MHollender 18y ago
Agreed, but still, I think the point is that failure does not need no reason. Failure is the default option. Try to land a Boeing 747, you fail. You need to learn, practice and do well 100 different things and then you don't. When I started working in the ERP industry, I thought really, really hard why are we so often on the brink of failure. What are we doing wrong? There must be some trick to discover one day... and then it turned out isn't some trick: there are loads and loads of tricks. It's not that we did wrong what we did, but simply we did not do 20% percent of all things we should have did.

cmos 18y ago

When starting a company in the beginning it's really clear what success means: Hitting payroll and staying alive. Once you clear that hurdle it get's a lot more complicated. No longer is it black and white. Alive or Dead. It's actually easier to live on the edge, though far less desirable. Things are a lot more clear.