Think of the Amazon Fire phone. Over the course of four years, the project went from an idea detailed in an aspirational mocked-up press release to almost universal disappointment after its launch in the summer of 2014. Initially priced at $199, the Fire soon cost only $0.99, and by the following winter, the company took a $170 million write-down based mostly on unsold phones.9 Where a more traditional company might have fired people and destroyed morale, Amazon used this opportunity to learn and reorganize.
