There is an interview with Marissa Mayer, a VP at Google, where the question was asked, “What have been Google’s biggest mistakes?” She answered that Wave, shutting down Dejanews and launching Gmail on April 1st (April Fools day) were the top three. I don’t want to focus on these though (shutting down Wave breaks my heart because it was great). I want to focus on what Google does really well. It learns from it’s mistakes and moves on quickly.
In my career I have worked at many start-ups and some of them have been acquired by large companies which retained me after the take over. When those companies took over you could actually feel the innovation and momentum just slow to a crawl. In a start-up you have to be fast, willing to change direction quickly and follow your instincts. If you don’t you fail. In larger organizations though it seems like it is frowned upon to challenge the status quo, to innovate or to create.
What Google does is different though (I don’t work there, never have and don’t know any one who does or has so this is an outside assumption). They build and test new ideas and if they fail to meet their standards they move on. But what they give you is some amazing functionality and great new ideas. Gmail, Google Earth, Wave (even though they are canceling it), Street View and Android. Any of these could have been done by another company but Google actually did them. They stepped up and tried it. Some of their ideas have failed, and some have cost them millions and millions of dollars but they continue to look for new ways to innovate and grow their business.
They aren’t afraid to fail and they even encourage it. Not that they want to fail or want their projects to fail but they actively learn from them and keep going out on a limb with new products and features. You can’t succeed if you don’t fail.
As Thomas Edison said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid of doing nothing.
