Not Every Failure Is A Learning Experience Ross | June 2nd, 2010

Many entrepreneurs and investors – especially in Silicon Valley – believe that failure is acceptable. Mark Suster writes:

I prefer second time (or more) entrepreneurs. Sure, I would love to work with people who have had multiple successes. But I’m not afraid of entrepreneurs that didn’t succeed the first time. I want to work with talented people with good judgment. And so I’m out to spread the word, “Good Judgment Comes from Experience, but Experience Comes from Bad Judgment.” Go out and learn.

There’s a big difference, however, between failing while giving your very best, and failing for the sake of failing. Mark Suster wrote an excellent post touching on this – Why The ‘Fail Fast’ Mantra Needs to Fail – and here are my thoughts on this issue:

Do you agree?

For a slightly different perspective about failure, you might want to read Jason Fried’s post from last year – Failure is overrated, a redux.

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  • Mark Suster

    To be fair I also wrote a post called, “the fail fast mantra must fail.” I don’t believe in failure for failure’s sake or in giving up easily. I just believe that first time entrepreneurs go through a lot of predictable mistakes so if you’ve made them and are now at company 2 I’m not negatively judging the fact that your first company didn’t become Facebook.

  • Mark Suster

    To be fair I also wrote a post called, “the fail fast mantra must fail.” I don’t believe in failure for failure’s sake or in giving up easily. I just believe that first time entrepreneurs go through a lot of predictable mistakes so if you’ve made them and are now at company 2 I’m not negatively judging the fact that your first company didn’t become Facebook.

  • Ross

    Mark – good point (and perhaps the quote I used needed a bit more context). For those who haven’t read Mark’s post – The Fail Fast Mantra Must Fail, I highly recommend you do so (and I’ll update my own post to link to it as well).

  • Ross

    Mark – good point (and perhaps the quote I used needed a bit more context). For those who haven’t read Mark’s post – The Fail Fast Mantra Must Fail, I highly recommend you do so (and I’ll update my own post to link to it as well).

  • Homer

    while I appreciate the time it took you to record the video.. I would much rather had you put your thoughts in text on a website so I can read it.

  • Homer

    while I appreciate the time it took you to record the video.. I would much rather had you put your thoughts in text on a website so I can read it.

  • Rob

    I tend to agree. I like the video blogs.

  • Rob

    I tend to agree. I like the video blogs.

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