Certain words have the power to immediately frame an emotion or feeling. Failure is one of those words, and it can carry a heavy meaning that leaves a lasting effect on a person. Now consider a universal truth: everybody fails. Many of us have heard the go-to staple stories of “failure heroes”: Albert Einstein, from his struggles in school to selling insurance door to door before landing a job in a patent office (and later joining Astro and friends); Thomas Edison and his 10,000 iterations on the lightbulb; or Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school basket- ball team. These individuals, among countless others, demonstrate that failure is a normal part of life – the pathway to our goals. Working in tech means experiencing failure on a regular (and, sometimes, daily) basis. There’s always a new product issue to trou- bleshoot, a pilot that isn’t hitting the mark and needs reimagining, or an emerging industry trend to understand and dissect well enough to write about convincingly. I spent time talking with two of our partners about their outlook on failure, how they’ve experienced it, and, most importantly, what strategies they used to overcome failure. 14 THE EXCHANGE FALL 2018 WINTER 2019 THETHE EXCHANGE EXCHANGE 15