Why I Write About Failure (And You Should Read About It)

At first glance, reading the texts on this site or the descriptions of my books, it’s easy to come to a simple conclusion: this guy must be a bitter, cynical professional complainer.

Fair enough. Complaining is practically a national sport where I come from.

But this time, it actually has a point.

The Problem with Success Stories

The internet is overflowing with success stories.

• “Be positive.”
• “You can do it.”
• “Believe in yourself.”

And sure — they’re pleasant to read. They’re motivational, emotionally uplifting, and perfect for LinkedIn carousels with a sunrise in the background.

The problem is that they carry surprisingly little practical value.

For every success story where all the stars aligned just right, there are hundreds — often thousands — of people who followed similar strategies, worked just as hard, and still failed. We don’t hear about them. They don’t get interviews, books, or TED Talks. They simply disappear from the narrative.

Not because they were lazy or stupid. But because reality is messy, probabilistic, and deeply unfair.

The Harvard Dropout Myth

Pop culture loves the myth of the Harvard dropout. Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg. The implication is clear: drop out, trust your genius, and success will follow.

What’s rarely mentioned is a small statistical detail: Harvard’s graduation rate is around 98%. Every year, roughly 40–50 people leave without a diploma.

Strangely enough, those people don’t usually end up on lists of the richest individuals on the planet. Or even particularly wealthy.

This isn’t about questioning the staggering achievements of Gates or Zuckerberg. Their success is real, earned, and undeniable. But it’s also inseparable from a series of extremely fortunate coincidences — timing, access, networks, and historical context that simply cannot be replicated at will.

Talent and hard work matter. So does luck. Often more than we’re comfortable admitting.

Survivorship Bias Is Everywhere

This brings us to a phenomenon known as survivorship bias.

During World War II, the U.S. Army studied bombers returning from missions and planned to reinforce the areas most heavily damaged by bullets.The logic seemed sound — until mathematician Abraham Wald, working with the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University, pointed out a fatal flaw.

The planes being analyzed were the ones that made it back.

The areas with no bullet holes weren’t safe — they were critical. Planes hit there never returned to be studied. The armor needed to go exactly where the data appeared to show nothing.

That mistake — focusing only on visible survivors — is survivorship bias in its purest form.

And it’s everywhere. In business. In technology. In career advice. In startup mythology.

Why Failures Teach Better

Failures and mistakes contain something success stories rarely do: universal lessons.

You may never encounter the perfect alignment of circumstances needed for spectacular success. But I can practically guarantee that an overlooked detail, a small assumption, or a neglected risk will eventually kick you when you least expect it.

There’s also a second, less philosophical reason for my focus.

Research consistently shows that making mistakes is one of the most effective ways humans learn. Thankfully, we don’t have to make all of them ourselves. Studying other people’s failures turns out to be almost as effective — and significantly less painful.

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

That’s why my work focuses on failures, screw-ups, and ordinary human errors. Not because everything is terrible. But because pretending everything is great leads to stagnation.un

I also have no intention of sugarcoating uncomfortable topics. An elephant doesn’t disappear just because we collectively agree not to talk about it. Security holes don’t stop being holes because of a well-organized silence. Someone will find them — sooner or later.

Ignoring problems doesn’t make you optimistic. It just makes you unprepared.

And if my writing occasionally sounds sharp, ironic, or inconvenient — that’s by design. Because progress rarely comes from pretending that nothing is wrong.

It comes from looking directly at what failed… and asking why.