The Pivot: Why failure equals success in Silicon Valley

One of my favorite things about Silicon Valley, and the tech start-up culture that emanates from there, is the idea that failure is good. There’s a certain joie de vivre shared by everyone from entrepreneurs to their millionaire investors who fund their ideas that a total bomb can lead to a magnificent success. In fact, they embrace it. Perhaps it’s because many entrepreneurs are spending other peoples’ money, and thusly don’t feel so bad when it all goes up in smoke on some half-baked idea. Or perhaps it’s because some of the best ideas in tech today have come out of those that weren’t so good. (Remember, Apple's first tablet devices was called the Newton.) There’s a word used to describe this get-over-it mentality that I heard over and over on my trip through Silicon Valley and San Francisco this week: “Pivot.”