- Panos Panay, senior vice president in charge of Amazon devices, Alexa, and Leo, told founders on the TechCrunch Disrupt stage that failure is unavoidable and essential in building good products.
- He cited the failure of the Surface RT launch during his more than 19 years at Microsoft. According to the source, this failure led to a write-down of about $1 billion (a downward adjustment of asset book value).
- Panay stressed that people should examine the decisions that piled up before the failure, rather than the failure moment itself. The examples in the source are unfinished software, inventory judgment errors, and balance problems in distribution strategy.
- He said to admit failure without making excuses, keep the vision, and adjust direction by only about 30 degrees rather than changing it greatly. This is his personal view, and the source does not provide evidence that this approach has produced results.
O: A team lead who runs Amazon's device business could review the causes of a failed project by writing down the decisions that piled up before the failure, in the order they happened, rather than focusing on the moment of failure.
X: This is a statement reflecting Parnay's personal experience and views, so the source does not confirm that the way he recovered from failure actually produced results.