Apparently, the secret to Silicon Valley’s success isn’t just the good weather and smart people – turns out, the secret to our region’s entrepreneurial preeminence just may be the way we embrace failure.
According to KPCB life-science (devices) partner Dana Mead – who notes he hails from the northeast — there’s a world of difference between Palo Alto and Cambridge (MA).
In Cambridge, he contends in a recent (and, as always, informative) lecture/podcast at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, if you tell people your last three businesses failed, “they’ll look at you sideways” and shake their heads, presumably with a mixture of sadness and pity. In Palo Alto, by contrast, the reaction will be “that’s awesome! I’m sure your next company will be a world-beater.”