The Winner of the Biggest Failure Award During Stanford Entrepeneurship Week

Last week was Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford.  There was a whirlwind of activities, from the premier of a film called Imagine It
about last year’s Entrepreneurship week, to all sorts of great presentations, to the
Stanford E Week Entrepreneurship Tournament.  This event was sponsored
and organized by the amazing folks at the Stanford Technology Ventures
Program, notably Executive Director Tina Seelig and Academic Director
Tom Byers. Plus long-time faculty member Tom Kosnik, who has won
numerous teaching awards and is widely loved, was also heavily involved.  You can read all
about what happened here.

I wanted to draw special attention to my favorite prize given during the week — for the Biggest Failure in the Entrepreneurship Tournament.  This was called the Stanford Rubber Wishing Tree project.  Failing and learning from it is a hallmark of all creative efforts, especially settings that produce successful entrepreneurship.  As Diego and I like to say, failure sucks but instructs.

I am proud of the organizers of this event for giving a Biggest Failure award and also proud of student Dorothea Koh and the members of her team for accepting the award in the right spirit. Here is the YouTube Video on the Stanford Rubber Wishing Tree. It is wonderful.  And check out Tom Kosnik’s wise comment.