How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Recorded
David MacMillan
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said elsewhere, not written here
I don’t know. That’s a terrible answer I realise, and everyone wants a nice straight forward answer. I think everyone, all scientists, have these kind of wacky ideas along the way, and some of them work and some of them don’t work. And this was one that, you know, came and was successful and went forward, and again it sounds obvious to say we were lucky – but we were lucky, you know, there’s way more ideas fail than ever succeed, and this was one that, you know, we were very excited about at the beginning, we thought it had a very low probability of success, but it took off, and it took off like gangbusters. That was wonderful to see.
Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 October 2022
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Akio Toyoda
President of Toyota Motor Corporation, 2009–2023; chairman from 2023
People fail because they’re taking on new challenges. If they don’t fail, it’s because they’ve only set themselves small goals, and they’ve placed themselves in a safe environment where they aren’t taking on challenges.
Recorded
Toyota Group employee, Akio Toyoda’s Juku on Quality, Toyota Times, 27 December 2021
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Derek Sivers
Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want
In the end, I had to pay $3.3 million dollars to buy back that 90%.
Recorded
Essay on sive.rs, Derek Sivers, 27 May 2009
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Yeah. It’s a grandiose reaction. You are claiming you could really control this, but you failed.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement, Academy of Achievement interview, New York, New York, 1 April 2005
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Sheryl Sandberg
Former chief operating officer of Facebook; founder of LeanIn.org
Day one of my first job out of college, my boss found out that I didn't know how to enter data into Lotus 1-2-3. That's a spreadsheet—ask your parents. His mouth dropped open and he said, ‘I can't believe you got this job without knowing that”—and then walked out of the room. I went home convinced that I was going to be fired. I thought I was terrible at everything… but it turns out I was only terrible at spreadsheets.
Recorded
University of California, Berkeley Commencement, Los Angeles Times, 14 May 2016
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