Ideas

The success of failure

In the last decade, efforts to reframe failure have pushed it to the surface of popular culture. People like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Oprah Winfrey are all hawking failure as the secret to 21st-century success. Was Samuel Beckett right: fail again, fail better?

In an age that worships success, there’s a movement to reclaim failure

Scott Sandage, author of Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, traces the evolution of failure from ordeal to identity. (Getty Images)

*This episode originally aired on December 15, 2021.

Failure. It's the worst. Nobody wants to fail, or be branded a failure. It suggests ruin, regret, and other people's contempt. No mere mistake, neither a bungle nor a botch, failure reigns supreme in the realm of the wrong.

It's terminal. The end. An "F" grade in life. 

Or is it?

In the last decade or so, efforts to reframe failure have pushed it to the surface of popular culture. Google 'failure' today, and you'll find motivational speakers and tech entrepreneurs hawking it as the secret to 21st-century success. 

Failure is not the dark side of the American Dream; it is the foundation of it.- Scott Sandage, author of 'Born Losers'

Ubiquitous among their slogans is a line from Samuel Beckett: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Whatever the Irish author's original intentions, Silicon Valley has appropriated the notion as its own.

But beyond Big Tech, there are others attempting to redeem this ancient antagonist, arguing for its authenticity, its necessity, and, ultimately, its embrace. 

Whatever the riff, failure is definitely having a moment. 

A history of failure

Scott Sandage teaches history at Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania. Once a semester, he brings his banjo to class to offer his students an object lesson in failure.

"I've been playing it for 20 years, and I ought to be much better than I am, but that's not why I play it," Sandage said. "The basic message is it's OK to do something badly."

Andrew Carnegie was one of the very few 19th century American industrialists who actually did go from rags to riches. (Ernest H. Mills/Getty Images)

In Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, Sandage traces the evolution of failure from incident to identity. 

Rooted in Old French and the 17th century, "failure" was originally used to describe events, most specifically business losses and bankruptcies. But as individualism and industrial capitalism evolved in the 19th century, especially in America, achievement fused with identity, and "the failure" was born.

"Failure as we know it, and as we talk about it, began as business language," Sandage explained. "It's the language of business applied to the soul."

Sandage claims that the idea of failure is so tangled up with America's rags-to-riches mythology — the one that makes success and failure facts of character rather than the randomness of circumstance — that "failure is not the dark side of the American Dream; it is the foundation of it."

Fail faster 

Fast forward to today's tech boom and startup gold rush, and suddenly Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial inversion of failure makes perfect sense. Nothing to do with Beckett's bleak reflection, but merely a fast track to success, and one that has even been torqued a notch to "fail faster."

But according to Toronto entrepreneur Julia Johnston, the breezy business motto pays no heed to the actual personal cost of failing. "It's such a great catch phrase: 'fail faster'," she said. "But how about 'fail faster, deal with it, and move on to your next thing'?"

After more than a decade working in international telecoms in Hong Kong and London, Johnston moved to California to partner with a former colleague, and get in on the startup game.

Their idea for an online avatar called mEgo got enough traction that, by 2007, they'd raised millions and been invited to present at San Francisco's leading startup conference, TechCrunch40.

Boosted, they carried on, even through the following year's bruising financial crisis. But by 2011, Johnston knew she had to call it quits.

"I think an entrepreneur is somebody who risks, and pushes through the dips, and pushes through the discomfort of those times when you're sleepless and you don't know which way to go," she said.

"But you've also got to know when to fail… Whether it's quitting a job, quitting a project, quitting a company, failing at a company, you have to know when the opportunity cost is way too high, and go on to the next thing. As hard as it is."


Revisiting the demise of mEgo is not something Johnston enjoys. But she's speaking up in favour of building a culture that embraces risk.

"We need to be better at just really appreciating the people who try, and appreciating the guts that it takes to risk failure," she said. "There's nothing wrong with failing at something. There's a huge stigma in our country. And maybe what we need to do is talk about it more." 

Success means failing

Samuel West couldn't agree more. West is the curator of the Museum of Failure, a collection of over 170 failed innovations that roam the world as a traveling exhibition.

Though the exhibits are universally well-received, West has noticed a different engagement with failure across cultures.  

The Segway was one of the first examples of failed tech included in the Museum of Failure. 'You evaluate a failure based on what the expectations were," said curator, Samuel West. 'This thing was supposed to change everything. And it did nothing.' (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

"There's not as much shame in the U.S. for trying and not succeeding, whereas in Europe there still is," he said. "In Italy, you don't fail. And if you do, you cover your tracks because it's so embarrassing."

West's interest in failure dates back to his doctoral studies in organizational psychology where he identified fear of failure as the biggest stumbling block to creativity and innovation.

"Our society values novelty, innovation, progress," he said. "But then we frown upon and stigmatize failure, which is a necessary step there. Right?"

Redefining that relationship is what the museum is all about. On display are all kinds of failed innovations made by some of the world's largest companies. The Ford Edsel, Google Glass, and New Coke help drive home the point that even the powerful muff things up. 

The strategy seems to be working. 

"Feedback that I've gotten from visitors is that it feels liberating to see how these big multinational companies, with all their resources and expertise, when they try new things, they too fail," West said.

Samuel West says Google is really good at testing things and moving on when they don't work out. Google Glass is included in the museum's collection. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The biggest takeaway? "It's that sense that it's not so horrible to fail if you're failing because you're trying something new."

West has been struck by the popularity of his museum. He jokes that he'd like to take credit for the recent surge of interest in failure, but he thinks there's also another impulse at work. 

"I think a lot of it is because we want something genuine. We want something uncurated," he said.

"And, because failure is something that most people and most companies usually hide, putting failure up on a pedestal and shining a spotlight on it offers that sense of 'this is real.'"
 

Guests in this episode:

Scott Sandage is the author of Born Losers, A History of Failure in America. He teaches history at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Julia Johnston is head of Business Affairs for Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. She is also the co-founder and former CEO of a Web2 tech startup in California. 

Brooke Struck is the research director at The Decision Lab, a Montreal-based firm that does behavioural science research and consulting.

Samuel West is a psychologist and the curator of the Museum of Failure.
 


*This episode was produced by Michelle Gagnon.

The Ideas Newsletter

Add some “good” to your morning and evening.

Subscribe to our newsletter to find out what's on, and what's coming up on Ideas, CBC Radio's premier program of contemporary thought.

...

The next issue of Ideas newsletter will soon be in your inbox.

Discover all CBC newsletters in the Subscription Centre.opens new window

now