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2014-07-22

Real Innovation and Failure by John Oringer of Shutterstock.com (video)



Jon Oringer's Columbia Class Day Speech from Shutterstock on Vimeo.
Shutterstock founder and CEO Jon Oringer delivers the 2014 keynote speech at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science graduation, advising students to dream big, but expect to grow from failures along the way. "If you want to create value of tremendous magnitude, you have to learn to live with — and to love — the process of failing." 

This is the "real deal" -- nothing like, for instance, the cheap words thrown out by overpaid ICANN staffers or hucksters that new gTLDs are somehow, in and of themselves, "innovation," and yet wouldn't know real innovation if it hit them in the face --

Shutterstock CEO Jon Oringer's Message to the Next Generation: 'Embrace Failure' — The Shutterstock Blog: "... Even though I was nearly broke, I was living my dream of building things. But I wanted to build something lasting, something of value. So I knew what I had to do: Double down on failure. Actually, I decided to quadruple down on failure by starting four new businesses at the same time ... What does this require? The courage to experiment, knowing that you’ll probably — no, you’ll definitely — fail. If you’re not, you’re not taking big enough risks. If every annoyance is an opportunity, then every failure is a lesson, and a chance to test another hypothesis. People talk about drive as though it’s an aspirational, lofty state. It’s not. It’s about gritty persistence. It’s about resilience — when you’re tired, when it sucks, when nothing is working. It’s about doing the un-fun things: Checking and rechecking code. Spending hours in the lab. Staying in and fixing bugs when all of your friends are out having a good time. Drive is being lost, confused, overwhelmed — but picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and trying all over again. I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Building is hard, failing can be deeply painful, and the reality is some people aren’t willing to pay that price. But if you are, then, take it from me, the sky is the limit."