'In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.'

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

'Your failures are your accomplishments because it makes you prepared for whatever it is that you are going to do next.'

- Director Lee Daniels (1959-present)

A quote from Robin Williams

"There’s no shame in failing. The only shame is not giving things your best shot."

'If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.'

- Billionaire John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)

'My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others' negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.'

-Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

'No big challenge has ever been solved, and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved, unless people dare to try something different.'

- Apple CEO Tim Cook (1960 - present)

Learn more about Ray Dalio's formula for progress

Across interviews and in his books, Dalio often emphasizes the importance of learning as much as possible to avoid making bad decisions. However, Dalio also often speaks about failure being a great teacher. One of his core principles is "Pain + Reflection \= Progress."

'Adversity, if you allow it to, will fortify you and make you the best you can be.'

-American beach volleyball star Kerri Walsh Jennings (1978-present)

Stanford’s ‘How to Start a Startup’ series

Stanford’s archive of lectures about creating a startup includes advice from Y Combinator notables such as former YC president and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and YC Cofounder Paul Graham.

A quote from Mark Cuban

"Talent without effort is wasted talent. And while effort is the one thing you can control in your life, applying that effort intelligently is next on the list."

Bill Gates and Paul Allen were childhood friends before founding Microsoft

The two bonded over a teletype terminal at their school, which required a $40 hourly fee for computing time. They were banned from using the device after exploiting a bug that allowed them to bypass the fee, only to be later offered free computing time for finding more bugs.

A quote from Sally Ride

“Three Secrets to Success: Be willing to learn new things. Be able to assimilate new information quickly. Be able to get along with and work with other people.”

'It's those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.'

- Author Malcolm Gladwell (1963 - present)

A failed resolution still defines directional exploration

The new year practice of making resolutions is so popular it can often inspire ironic dismissal from those all-too-aware of how many fail. This piece argues failure doesn't matter: Making the resolution itself helps define one's focus in life, arguably more important than racking up achievements.

'The Father of Positive Psychology' gives tips on building resilience

People differ in how they respond to setbacks. Famed psychologist Martin Seligman outlines three key pillars for resilience: developing mental toughness by interpreting failures as external and temporary, recognizing and using one’s signature strengths, and cultivating strong relationships that offer support and meaning.

'It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.'

- Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali (1942–2016)

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

The Failure Museum is a curated collection of over 1,000 items representing failed products and companies

Sean Jacobsohn, a tech investor and founder of the Failure Museum, uses items from failed businesses to explain the six primary forces behind their flops, from a Theranos mug to a Blockbuster membership card.

'In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.'

- Isaac Asimov

Amazon's success is attributable, in large part, to founder Jeff Bezos’ vision

Bezos parlayed a career on Wall Street into founding an online bookstore that would evolve into the largest online retailer in the world. Bezos’ story is characterized by his relentless focus on innovation and on the customer experience at Amazon.

Understanding college basketball's guru, UCLA's John Wooden

John Wooden coached UCLA to an unprecedented 10 NCAA titles, including seven straight from 1967 to 1973. He studied the characteristics that made people successful and, in 1948, created his iconic triangular diagram with 25 common behaviors. This article unpacks the 25-block framework that makes the "Pyramid of Success" and shows how Wooden's off-court wisdom shaped future champs like Bill Walton and Steve Kerr.

A list of one guy's hundreds of fortune cookie fortunes

Simple idea: Eat lots of Chinese food, collect wisdom in the form of fortunes. Josh Madison held onto hundreds of these and lists them here, noting the ones he received more than once with a number.

Nvidia founder Jensen Huang would not do it again

Huang was asked in 2023 whether he would do it all over again if he was transported back 30 years before. Huang said no, arguing he would not have knowingly put himself through the suffering and difficulties it took to build Nvidia, calling this ignorance to future pain one of his superpowers.

Richard Feynman exposed NASA's safety failures on the Rogers Commission

The Nobel Laureate served on the Rogers Commission investigating Challenger, famously demonstrating O-ring failure with ice water and eventually criticizing NASA's culture of risk normalization and management pressure in the final report.

AI expert shows the cyclical nature of AI hype—in 1988

Rodney Brooks wrote several decades ago about the boom and bust cycles of artificial intelligence. Starting from the 1950s excitement over ENIAC's multiplication through the second launch of then-novel neural networks, Brooks suggests AI progresses incrementally despite the hype.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Researchers believe the brain consolidates memories, processes emotions, and plans for the future during dream states

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.