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Comment by benl | Hacker News Reader

I think approaching your work from the standpoint of "Learn from success, not failure" is a sure path to succumbing to confirmation bias and becoming a one-trick pony.

The 37s guys have done some wonderful work. But to me they are pretty much the embodiment of what I think of when I remember Paul Buchheit's great quote:

"Limited Life Experience + Overgeneralization = Advice"

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  I think approaching your work from the standpoint of "Learn
  from success, not failure" is a sure path to succumbing to
  confirmation bias and becoming a one-trick pony.

And the stats mentioned show, that approaching work from standpoint "learn from failure" is a sure path to being zero-trick pony. The stats in question show, that those who failed previously have the same success rate as those who never even tried, and those who succeeded previously have success rate higher by third.

It doesn't tell anything, as you don't know why people failed in the first place and if they learned from their mistakes.

Maybe, people able to learn from mistakes are able to recover them before their business fails...

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