Learning from Failure - What makes Silicon Valley different

In Silicon Valley, failure isn’t an option. It’s mandatory. A whole conference earlier this week, devoted to failure, FailCon, may be a first, but it’s looking like a success, with the likes of PayPal co-founder Max Levchin talking about how he failed repeatedly before making billions making the payment platform for the web.

“The one liberating thing with failure is that you start at like -5 the next time,” Levchin said. “Failure? I can fail tomorrow and I don’t care, I’m failing now.” That doesn’t mean that Levchin, now CEO of Slide — a Facebook app maker — or any one else at the conference likes failure.

“Failure sucks,” Levchin said. “I don’t have a cathartic moment. When I failed and I found that my credit cards were maxed out and my adrenaline that let me ignore all those things wore off.”

The point of the conference wasn’t to celebrate failure, but to learn from it.

For more, see - http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/failcon-succeeds/