The fail-fast mantra has no place in rocket science. When each failure is horrifically expensive—in terms of both money and human lives—we can’t rush to the launch pad with a crappy rocket and fail as fast as possible. Even outside rocket science, the fail-fast refrain is misguided. When entrepreneurs are too busy failing fast and celebrating it, they stop learning from their mistakes. The clinking of champagne glasses mutes the feedback they might otherwise receive from failure. Failing fast, in other words, doesn’t magically produce success. When we fail, we’re often none the wiser.
