In responding to the question "How important is failure in business?".
"I think failure is massively overrated. Most businesses fail for more than one reason. So when a business fails, you often don't learn anything at all because the failure was overdetermined. You will think it failed for reason 1, but it failed for reasons 2 through 5. And so the next business you start will fail for reason 2, and then for 3 and so on."
-Peter Thiel on Tim Ferris podcast (http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/), grabbed from his recent book, Tools of Titans
Definition of overdetermined: "To determine, account for, or cause something in more than one way or with more conditions than are necessary."
"I think failure is massively overrated. Most businesses fail for more than one reason. So when a business fails, you often don't learn anything at all because the failure was overdetermined. You will think it failed for reason 1, but it failed for reasons 2 through 5. And so the next business you start will fail for reason 2, and then for 3 and so on."
-Peter Thiel on Tim Ferris podcast (http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/), grabbed from his recent book, Tools of Titans
Definition of overdetermined: "To determine, account for, or cause something in more than one way or with more conditions than are necessary."