How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Recorded Howard Schultz said elsewhere, not written here
But in 2007, the music stopped. We had lost sight of our shared purpose and our guiding principles, in which growth and success began to cover up mistakes and a disease set into Starbucks. That disease, hubris. We lost our way and believe it or not, we almost lost the entire company.

Arizona State University commencement, Speakola, 2017 source ↗

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Richard Leakey Palaeoanthropologist and conservationist; head of the Kenya Wildlife Service
So Cambridge rejected me. Quite rightly, although at the time I thought it was a little churlish. So, I had to do it without any university training. ... and I began to realize that there were probably a lot more of these things, and that if you find these things, you get a position in the ladder which you can’t get to unless you have either got an education or something else. So by finding important things, you immediately get into the game, which you’d been excluded from otherwise.
Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 21 June 2007 source ↗
Daniel Ek Co-founder and former chief executive of Spotify
It was like switching out the engines mid-flight. I remember the day we turned on this free service, had we probably gone on for about six more months, I think we might have died as a company. That was a defining moment and that was as late as 2013. I think every great company has at least three near-death experiences.
Recorded Slush conference, Helsinki, Music Ally, 30 November 2016 source ↗
Tasuku Honjo Japanese immunologist and Nobel laureate
No, no. Well, you know, biology is such a complex system. It’s totally different from the engineering. We cannot design. Many people tried to find the therapy for cancer, but all failed. And myself, I never expected my research, working on the immune system, would lead to the cancer therapy. But, in a sense, I’m very fortunate that I also thought about it. You know, you have to try many things and if you’re lucky you can hit, but you have to pursue. That’s my feeling.
Recorded Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 October 2018 source ↗
Joyce Carol Oates Novelist, short story writer and essayist
And so I finally felt that I’d given up. ... And towards the morning, I started thinking, “Well, failure is actually what most people experience in boxing.” ... And I found a way to write about the whole sport by way of beginning with failure, with the image of failure.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 20 May 1997 source ↗

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Question What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you have ever made — of money, time, or energy? Money & investment
But from day one, I really wanted to build the kind of company my father never got a chance to work for. A company that honors and respects the dignity of work and the dignity of all men and all women. And that is why we became the first company in all of America to provide comprehensive health insurance 30 years ahead of the affordable care act, as well as ownership in the form of stock options for all of our employees, including part-time people because it is my firm belief that success in business and in life is best when it's shared.
Recorded Arizona State University commencement, Speakola, 2017 source ↗

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