Resilience: Steve Jobs on the Power of Failure

""Nior dhun Dia doras riamhnar oscail Se ceann eile"
(God never closes one door without opening another)
                                    -- Irish Saying

I have often written about the importance of Resilience in entrepreneurship. As they say, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. This is easy to say in the abstract, but when you are going through massive set backs or failure, it is hard to feel that anything good will come of it. I certainly did not welcome the catastrophic yard sale of one of my most promising deals back in 2001. In one short year, this company went from being a potential $2B IPO (making 20x for us) to an $180m smoking hole in the ground. That said, I learned more about venture investing on that one disaster than I did on my previous 8 deals.

One of the most moving speeches I have read/heard has been Steven Jobs Stanford University Commencement speech last year titled "You've got to find what you love". It is a must read for any up and coming entrepreneur. In it, he describes how fortunate he was to experience three normally traumatic set backs which all contributed to his stellar success. These were his dropping out of college, his very public firing from Apple and his bout with cancer. I won't ruin the punchline...but take a look.