I quite enjoyed your ode to entrepreneurial failure (“Fail Often, Fail Well,” April 16, 2011). Indeed, an entrepreneur learns as much from success as from failure. To him or her, there is little difference between the two. As far as there is something to learn, and as far as the next beginning is behind the corner, all is well. But the title of your article immediately reminded me of Samuel Beckett. In Worstward Ho (1983), written in praise of failure, he puts it admirably:

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

And his last line sums up your article pretty well. As you report, many enlightened companies are now giving “best failure” awards or mounting “failure parties.” In particular, you cite India’s Tata, a vast conglomerate, Intuit, a software company, and Eli Lilly, a giant in pharmaceuticals, as valiant supporters of failure. I have never thought of Becket as a management guru, but he surely is one, if not one of the very greatest. And Worstward Ho is his claim to the entrepreneurship fame.