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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

I agree that failures are interesting, but the bias problem doesn't go away. Reasons people give for why they failed are no more reliable than reasons they give for why they succeeded (or anything else, for that matter). We're good story-tellers and bad reason-knowers.

I often have this feeling when reading "why my startup failed" blog posts (how do they know?!). Which doesn't mean they aren't worth reading!

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> Reasons people give for why they failed are no more reliable than reasons they give for why they succeeded

100% true.

That's why when you learn about other ventures, successful or not, what the founders say are the important features aren't really the part that you should pay the most attention to.

What specifically in your opinion are you supposed to pay attention to?

What actually happened.

A founder's analysis of the events is not without value, and shouldn't be ignored, but it's not the most important part. Any founder's analysis will be heavily subjective, after all.

Founder awareness of what even happened in my experience is highly biased. Likely even worse than reliability of eyewitness testimony, since they were actively participating in the situation.

Agree, if there was a proven and repeatable method of doing (or not doing) anything that produced significant value, it would rapidly be adopted (or blocked) — and as result, offer diminishing (if not negative) returns.

This.

And “What did you do right?” is often informative, regardless of overall success.

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