If you punish people too much for failure, then they will respond accordingly and the innovation you will get will be very incrementalist. Nobody's going to try anything bold for fear of getting fired or punished in some way. The risk/reward must be balanced, in favor of making bold moves.

One area where I think we are especially distinctive is failure. I believe we are the best place in the world to fail (we have plenty of practice!), and failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment. Most large organizations embrace the idea of invention but are not willing to suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there.

Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It's not optional.

Success is my only option, failure's not.

As a company grows, everything needs to scale, including the size of your failed experiments. If the size of your failures isn't growing, you're not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle.

You must first be willing to fail - and you must have the courage to go for it anyway.