We will see the False Fail over and over, both in science and in business. There are many reasons projects can die: funding dwindles, a competitor wins, the market changes, a key person leaves. But the False Fail is common to loonshots. Risks of this type of death can never be fully eliminated—negative results don’t come with a neon sign that lights up “your idea is flawed” or “your test is flawed.” But those risks can be reduced, which is exactly what Endo and Folkman did, as we will discuss below. People may think of Endo and Folkman as great inventors, but arguably their greatest skill was
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