I think there are two sides to this and I tend to agree with both of them- I don’t know if that makes me but yeah things don’t have to be black or white, they can and more often than not tend to be in shades of grey ( nothing to do with the books of course). And before Alok rips me into pieces, I would like to point out that I more than believe in the benefits of failure and agree with him that it should be celebrated- myself having tried completely burnt and hoping to stand again, I don’t even have a choice but to 😉
But on one hand if we rightly can’t ignore the obvious “Benefits of Failure” as pointed out by JK Rowling in her address at Harvard (please do go check the speech if you haven’t already) one also needs to take a look at its ill-effects.
Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, is probably the first (and probably the only) I have heard who talks about that failure is bad. I think his reasons are legitimate. See failure makes you less prone to risks. Its like a child who is ready to climb tables and cars and ladders and what not until he falls the first time. Then he is scared to climb, he understands that it hurts. That is what Peter Thiel believes stops a lot of people to start over again. I have seen that in my case, I am so much more cautious than I was. Now, like everything else, in controlled amounts this can work in your favour. In controlled amounts this fear is what we refer to as “Learnings from past Failure”. But where do you draw that line. In a lot of cases that child can eventually develop a life long fear of heights can’t he.
Here is where Peter Thiel and Alok Kejriwal collide. You see they are helping solve the same problem but at different ends. Where Peter Thiel is saying lets develop a system where we have lesser failures. Peter is saying to that kid- go on climb I am here to catch you.
Alok on the other hand wants to pick up those kids who have gone through the process and telling them its no big deal. Its ok to fall. Helping them face their fears and stand up again.
On their own both of these approaches are important and necessary. We need an ecosystem that helps startups to succeed. And, we need to tell people who have fallen that it is absolutely fine to fall- that trying what you believed in was exceptional and failures are temporary. In the end the do have what you call “Takeaways” from that failure, and if controlled and utilized properly the next attempt should yield better results.
So we are back to the original question- to fail or not to fail 😉