How Failure Fuels Innovation in Technology

One of the biggest misconceptions about innovation is that success comes from avoiding failure. In the age of AI, the opposite is even more true. We’re seeing this in real time with AI models, released in rapid succession, each one improving through continuous iteration and real-world use. The organizations producing the best products are those that experiment the most, now at a scale and speed that wasn’t previously possible. AI dramatically lowers the cost of testing ideas, generating variations, and learning from real-world feedback. What once took months can now happen in days, or even hours. That shift changes the role of failure. In earlier eras, mistakes were expensive and information was scarce, so management systems were built to minimize risk. Today, intelligence is abundant and iteration is cheap. The constraint is no longer access to data or tools, it is how quickly organizations can learn. Failure is still not useful when it is careless or repeated. But in an AI-enabled environment, well-structured experimentation, testing, measuring, refining, turns failure into a compounding advantage. Each iteration improves not just the product, but the system that produces it. The organizations that innovate consistently understand this. They build cultures and workflows designed for rapid learning, where teams can test ideas, incorporate AI-driven insights, and move forward with better information almost in real time. Innovation still doesn’t emerge fully formed. But in the age of AI, the cycle of attempt, feedback, and improvement is accelerating, and those who embrace that loop will outpace those still trying to avoid it. #SchmidtSights

🚀 #TeachMeTuesday: “Failure is an option (2024)” — Why SpaceX out-innovates traditional aerospace Today I pick up a few papers assessing the overall innovation approach and success of SpaceX, and to generate lessons for overall innovation strategy at the firm and country-level. In reality, SpaceX is operating more like a software company than an old-school aerospace giant: → Fast test loops → Learning-driven innovation → Governance that enables failure and iteration The papers show that its innovation system is built on governance mechanisms that embrace failure. For those aiming to accelerate progress in critical technologies — from advanced manufacturing to climate tech to AI — understanding this model might be key. How does SpaceX deliver over 100 launches a year, while cutting costs and iterating faster than state programs? 👉 A great new paper by Vittori et al. (2024) — "Failure is an option: How failure can lead to disruptive innovations"https://lnkd.in/eE8f2hJR — dives deep into how SpaceX systematically designs failure into its governance: → High test cadence → Failure-tolerant engineering culture → Management insulation from public/political backlash → Reuse and rapid iteration 👉 In parallel, Ansar & Flyvbjerg (2022) — "How to Solve Big Problems: Bespoke Versus Platform Strategies" https://lnkd.in/e9k3XjmH show that SpaceX’s platform-based approach (versus NASA’s bespoke project model) delivers: ✔️ 10x cost savings ✔️ 2x faster development ✔️ Lower systemic risk Some interesting facts that are more recent. 📊 SpaceX 2024–25: The governance-driven innovation system in numbers: Launch cadence: 🛰️ 134 Falcon 9 launches in 2024 — more than 50% of global orbital launches Reuse rate: 🔁 ~80% booster reuse (some boosters with 25+ flights) → AINvest 💰 ~$62 million per Falcon 9 launch — nearly 20x cheaper per kg than the Space Shuttle 🌐 Ecosystem feedback & platform thinking Cai et al. (2024) — "SpaceX’s Network Effects and Innovation Strategy Analysis" — further show how SpaceX’s ecosystem works https://lnkd.in/egh94Bmd Starlink → feeds launch revenue More launches → improve learning → funds Starship A true commercial + technological feedback loop 🚀 Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg SpaceX Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX News by Newslines Claire Jolly Marit Undseth dominique guellec Mattia Olivari

The Post-It Principle: How a Failed Experiment Became a Global Icon Back in 1968, a 3M scientist named Spencer Silver set out to create a powerful new adhesive. He ended up making the exact opposite— a super-weak, pressure-sensitive glue that couldn’t hold anything for long. To most people, it looked pointless. For years he tried pitching it internally. No one cared. Teams brushed it off with jokes like, “Why would anyone need glue that doesn’t stick?” But then came Art Fry, another 3M employee with a totally unrelated problem. He sang in a church choir and kept losing his bookmarks—they kept sliding out of his hymnal. One day he remembered Spencer’s “failed glue.” A spark: What if this weak adhesive could create a bookmark that sticks… but gently? The first samples were small yellow squares. Simple. Cheap. Reusable. Completely unique. 3M named them Post-it Notes. And that “useless glue”? It turned into one of the most iconic office products ever—used across 100+ countries and generating billions. Breakthroughs rarely come from inventing something brand new. They come from reimagining what already exists. Spencer didn’t fix his failure. Art didn’t invent a new category. They simply saw hidden value in something overlooked. Think about it: Netflix didn’t invent movies, they reinvented distribution. Uber, Ola, Rapido didn’t invent taxis, they reinvented access. Airbnb didn’t invent travel, they reinvented trust. Innovation isn’t starting from zero. It’s seeing potential where others see mistakes. Failure isn’t a dead end, it’s raw material for your next idea. The Post-It Principle shows that your worst idea might just be waiting for the right problem to shine. So when something doesn’t work… Don’t discard it. Stick with it. #Innovation #Creativity #Leadership #DesignThinking #ProblemSolving #BusinessStrategy #GrowthMindset #ProductInnovation #MarketingStrategy #Transformation #Storytelling #LessonsLearned #Inspiration #TechLeadership #CIOCommunity #Entrepreneurship #FutureOfWork #MindsetShift #ContinuousImprovement #CareerGrowth

3M: A Legacy of Innovation, Resilience, and Lessons in Failure Did you know 3M has been on the Fortune 500 list every year since its inception? With over 100,000 patents and 55,000 products, 3M embodies innovation. But its success story is built on reinvention, resilience, and lessons about the value of failure. The Rise: Innovating Through Failure 3M started in 1902 as a struggling mining company, losing money trying to sell the wrong mineral. Instead of folding, it pivoted to abrasives and adhesives. Breakthroughs like masking tape, invented by a lab assistant solving real-world problems, laid the foundation for 3M’s culture of experimentation. One iconic example? The Post-it Note, born from a failed attempt to create a strong adhesive. The Leadership That Defined 3M Under William McKnight, 3M embraced risk-taking. His philosophy? “Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes don’t matter.” This mindset created the “15% rule,” giving employees time for personal projects, fostering groundbreaking ideas. The Fall: Losing the Innovative Edge In recent years, 3M shifted focus to short-term profits over innovation, stifled by bureaucracy and increased competition. The lesson? Complacency and a fear of failure are far greater threats than external challenges. The Present and Future While no longer the innovation leader it once was, 3M is adapting through sustainability and renewed R&D. Key Takeaways 1. Innovate to Fail: Great ideas like Post-it Notes often emerge from failure. 2. Empower People: Creativity thrives in a culture of trust. 3. Never Get Comfortable: Reinvent constantly to stay relevant. 4. Think Long-Term: Balance short-term gains with long-term vision. 3M’s story proves failure isn’t the opposite of success—it’s a step toward it. What’s your take? Is your organization innovating boldly, or is fear of failure holding you back?

In 1974, Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, created an adhesive that didn’t really stick. It was weak. Temporary. Basically useless for what he was trying to build. Some inventions come from genius, others… from failure, shared openly in the right culture. Take the humble Post-it Note. It started with a failed experiment. But here’s where it gets interesting: 3M didn’t toss it. They didn’t say, “Come back when it’s successful.” They encouraged Spencer to share it. To talk about his “failed” glue at internal seminars. To put it out there, without judgment, without agenda.  Because at 3M, ideas are shared. Failures are not buried. They’re explored. Years later, a colleague, Art Fry, frustrated that his paper bookmarks kept falling out of his choir hymnal, remembered Spencer’s odd little adhesive. He tried applying it to scraps of paper. That “failed” glue became the Post-it Note. The Post-it was a product of cultural design. A culture that: ✔️ Encouraged curiosity over control ✔️ Treated failure as information, not incompetence ✔️ Valued people enough to let them think beyond their job description Most companies say “we value innovation.” But innovation isn’t something you say. It’s something your culture either allows or suffocates. As a coach, I tell leaders this all the time: You don’t need more ideas, you need a place where people feel safe to share the ones they already have. Because what if your next breakthrough is sitting silently in someone’s “failed” folder?

On the tenth day of Continuous Innovation... Breakthrough Requires Unexpected Outcomes Can you find the common theme across these discoveries: Penicillin, microwave, X-ray, gunpowder, plastics, and vulcanized rubber? Yes, they were all accidental discoveries. But because they were accidental, dismissing them as lucky breaks is easy. However, there was more than luck at play. All these discoveries started as failed experiments. In each of these cases, the inventors were seeking a specific outcome and instead got a different outcome. But instead of throwing away their “failed” experiments, they did something very different from most people: they asked why. Innovation experiments are no different. Achieving a breakthrough is less about luck and more about a rigorous search. The reason the hockey-stick trajectory has an extended flat portion at the beginning is not that the founders are lazy and not working hard, but because before you can find a business model that works, you have to go through lots of stuff that doesn’t. Secrets live in the flat portion of the hockey stick curve. Breakthrough insights are often hidden within failed experiments. Most entrepreneurs, however, run away from failure. At the first sign of failure, they rush to course correct without taking the requisite time to dig deeper and get to the root cause of the failure. A “pivot” is often used to justify this course correction. But this, of course, is a misuse of the term: A pivot not grounded in learning is simply a disguised “see what sticks” strategy. The key to breakthrough isn’t running away from failure but digging in your heels and asking why, like the inventors above. The “fail fast” meme is commonly used to reinforce this sentiment. But I’ve found that the taboo of failure runs so deep (even in Silicon Valley) that “failing fast” is insufficient to get people to accept failure as a prerequisite to achieving a breakthrough. You need to completely remove the word “failure” from your vocabulary. “ There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes.” - Buckminster Fuller And replace "failing" with "learning".

42 years ago, Apple launched the Lisa computer for $10,000. It flopped spectacularly. Most units ended up buried in a Utah landfill. But Lisa introduced something revolutionary: graphical interface, windows, icons, point-and-click interaction. The "failure" taught the entire industry what the future looked like. This pattern repeats everywhere in tech: → IBM's Simon smartphone (1994) was a $1,100 brick that lasted 6 months → Early AI like Clippy felt intrusive and annoying → Google Glass made you look like a cyborg BUT .... The "failures" (FACEPLANTS) didn't win their markets. They defined them. Which brings me to something I'm wrestling with today. Organizations everywhere are fumbling with AI tools right now. Teams trying ChatGPT for the first time. Results all over the map. Sound familiar? My own messy experiment? This LinkedIn writing thing. Some days I think I've cracked the code. Post goes viral. Comments pour in. I feel like a content genius. Other days? I spend two hours crafting what I think is brilliant insight. Gets 12 likes. Mostly from my mom. Just like Lisa taught Apple, our disasters teach us. My "failed" posts have shown me more than my hits: → When I'm trying too hard vs. when I'm just sharing → Which topics I actually understand vs. which I'm pretending to know → What resonates with real people vs. what sounds good in my head Our first attempts rarely are successful. That's not failure. That's how we figure out what works. Both products AND people. Your awkward AI experiments today? Your first attempts at something that scares you? You're not failing. You're learning what the future looks like. One messy attempt at a time. Read the full story here: When Failure Teaches The Industry What's Next by Tim Bajarin https://lnkd.in/eep8m_yk

We love to romanticize flawless chip launches. But the real breakthroughs? They’re almost always born from big, painful failures. After years in semiconductors, I’ve realized: every "perfect" processor or GPU you see today carries scars from the past. Here are five failure stories that quietly shaped the chips powering our world today: → The parasitic shorts that sparked DFT Evolution A single via glitch in the 2000s wrecked yields, forcing Design-for-Test (DFT) to become mandatory. This shift helped us catch hidden flaws before chips ever shipped. → The Pentium FDIV bug The 1994 Intel FDIV bug cost millions and led to new transparency and validation standards. The backlash forced companies to take verification seriously. → The GPU memory-controller meltdown Early GDDR5 bit-flips caused graphics glitches and redesigns, highlighting the need for true stress testing. This taught us that robust memory design is non-negotiable. → Intel’s 10 nm yield fiasco 10 nm yields under 20% pushed Intel back to 14 nm, proving the value of realistic goals and strong fallback nodes. This pushed the shift to modular design and new fab strategies. → AMD’s Bulldozer IPC Shortfall Bulldozer's poor single-thread IPC in 2011 showed the importance of per-core efficiency and accurate modeling. This flop forced AMD to rethink everything and led to Ryzen’s big comeback. These aren’t just engineering trivia. They show that every big leap is built on failures and restarts. Failure isn’t a bug. It’s part of the blueprint. Which lesson hits home for you? #Semiconductors #ChipDesign #Engineering #Innovation #LessonsLearned #stemachip

Words of Wisdom (WoW) Wednesday: Why Your Biggest Mistakes Are Your Best Teachers 💡 "There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period." - Brené Brown This quote from Brené Brown hits hard because it's fundamentally true, especially in leadership. As leaders, we often strive for perfection, creating environments where mistakes are seen as something to be avoided at all costs. But what if I told you that this very mindset could be stifling your team's greatest potential? 🤔 Lets talk about it: ▪️ The "Flawed" App Update That Paved the Way for Perfection: I vividly recall when a major app update didn't quite hit the mark. User feedback was... direct. Instead of sweeping issues under the rug, we debriefed rigorously, diving deep into every bug report. We identified critical user pain points and performance bottlenecks we'd missed. That "failure" directly informed the next iteration, which wasn't just a fix, but a complete overhaul, becoming our most stable, feature-rich, highly-rated app version to date! 📈 ▪️ The Debugging Nightmare That Led to a Scalable Solution: Or the late-night coding session where a major bug seemed insurmountable, but in dissecting the problem, we uncovered a fundamental flaw in our architecture that led to a more robust, scalable solution than we ever initially envisioned. Sometimes, the most frustrating technical challenges illuminate the path to true innovation. 💡 As leaders, how can we foster a culture where mistakes are seen as stepping stones, not stumbling blocks? ▪️ Lead by Example: Share your own professional missteps and what you learned from them. Vulnerability builds trust. 🙏 ▪️ Create Safe Spaces for Experimentation: Encourage your team to try new things, even if the outcome is uncertain. Make it clear that the learning is more valuable than the initial "win." 🧑🔬 ▪️ Focus on the "Why": When a mistake happens, don't just assign blame. Dive deep into understanding the root cause and systemic issues. What can we learn from this? How can we prevent it next time? 🧐 ▪️ Celebrate Learning, Not Just Success: Acknowledge the effort and the insights gained from an unsuccessful attempt. This reinforces that the journey of learning is just as important as the destination. 🎉 ▪️ Embracing failure isn't about being careless; it's about being courageous enough to explore, iterate, and ultimately, innovate. Book Recommendation 📚 Want to dive deeper into learning from mistakes? I highly recommend "Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes--But Some Do" by Matthew Syed. Syed explores how industries like aviation meticulously analyze errors to improve. It's a fascinating look at why some embrace learning from failure, while others remain stuck in denial. A must-read! #Leadership #Innovation #Failure #Learning #GrowthMindset #Mistakes #BreneBrown #BlackBoxThinking #TeamDevelopment

Cultivating a culture of innovation was not on top of Alexander Fleming’s to-do list, but that is exactly what he accidentally did. In 1928, when he returned from vacation to find mold contaminating his bacterial cultures, he could have discarded them as failures. Instead, his observation of the clear ring around the mold led to penicillin—saving millions of lives. I have found that innovation often emerges from unexpected places and careful observation, not just deliberate planning. This approach has transformed how I address engineering challenges. Examining anomalies that others might dismiss, questioning standard practices, and creating space for serendipitous discovery alongside methodical development are crucial to kindling innovation. Extraordinary things unfold when we pay attention to what actually occurs, not just what we expect to see. The next time you think that you have messed up, take a step back and look for potential innovation hiding within the apparent failure.