Looking under the rug: the art of learning from failure

The tech industry has a longtime history of cultivating heroes and epic stories of success. “Look how this tiny startup became an industry giant!”, “Did you hear Joe just got his dream job?”, “Learn how to ship amazing projects to production in no time!”. We’ve all heard stories like these and they are indeed very inspiring, but how come no one is talking about the ugly parts? Why aren’t stories of things that didn’t work out more common in tech? Why aren’t we more transparent about our experiences and what we learned from them?

In this talk, I’ll go through all the lessons I took from failing miserably at a software project, how that made me a much better developer and the importance of failure in the career of a software engineer.

Transcript

1. Looking under the rug
   The art of learning from failure
   @silveira_bells
   

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2. What is your worst fear?
   

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4. 67K+ students
   

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5. ~15K employees
   

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6. mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
   +———————————+
   | Database |
   +———————————+
   | information_schema |
   | mysql |
   | […] |
   | sys |
   | employees |
   +———————————+
   7 rows in set (0.01 sec)
   

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7. DELETE FROM employees
   WHERE salary = 0
   

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8. DELETE FROM employees
   

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9. DELETE FROM employees
   
   

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10. ~15K employee records
    completely gone
    

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11. Names, bank info, addresses,
    you name it
    

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12. That definitely felt like doom
    

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14. But it wasn’t
    

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16. Isa Silveira
    @silveira_bells
    Mozilla Tech Speaker
    Software engineer @iZettle
    *But also a proud Brazilian, math freak and karaoke star
    

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17. Isa Silveira
    @silveira_bells
    Mozilla Tech Speaker
    Software engineer @iZettle
    *But also a proud Brazilian, math freak and karaoke star
    

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18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS2HYJKndRc
    

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19. So why do we fear failing?
    

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20. Fear of shame
    

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21. Self-sabotage
    

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22. Impostor syndrome
    

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23. No learning
    

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24. No learning
    No evolution
    

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25. No learning
    No evolution
    No innovation
    

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28. “Even though Traf-O-Data wasn't a roaring success, it
    was seminal in preparing us to make Microsoft's first
    product a couple of years later.”
    — Paul Allen
    

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29. 1. Improves confidence
    2. Generates tons of learnings
    3. Could lead to "happy accidents"
    4. Faster recovery from future mistakes
    The perks of failing horribly:
    

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30. 1. Improves confidence
    2. Generates tons of learnings
    3. Could lead to "happy accidents"
    4. Faster recovery from future mistakes
    The perks of failing horribly:
    

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31. 1. Improves confidence
    2. Generates tons of learnings
    3. Could lead to "happy accidents"
    4. Faster recovery from future mistakes
    The perks of failing horribly:
    

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32. 1. Improves confidence
    2. Generates tons of learnings
    3. Could lead to "happy accidents"
    4. Faster recovery from future mistakes
    The perks of failing horribly:
    

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33. Be transparent about mistakes
    you make and accept the
    mistakes of others
    

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34. Vulnerability is key
    

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36. “[…] getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have
    ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was
    replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure
    about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative
    periods of my life.”
    — Steve Jobs
    

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37. The beginner’s guide of
    Fuckup Recovery
    

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38. 1. Breathe
    2. Create an action plan
    3. Establish preventive measures
    4. Revisit goals
    5. Repeat cycle
    

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39. 1. Breathe
    2. Create an action plan
    3. Establish preventive measures
    4. Revisit goals
    5. Repeat cycle
    

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40. 1. Breathe
    2. Create an action plan
    3. Establish preventive measures
    4. Revisit goals
    5. Repeat cycle
    

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41. 1. Breathe
    2. Create an action plan
    3. Establish preventive measures
    4. Revisit goals
    5. Repeat cycle
    

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42. 1. Breathe
    2. Create an action plan
    3. Establish preventive measures
    4. Revisit goals
    5. Repeat cycle
    

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44. “Why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I
    now know definitely over 9,000 ways an electric lightbulb will not
    work. Success is almost in my grasp.”
    — Thomas Edison
    

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45. Generated by CertificateMagic.com
    Certificate of Achievement
    Presented to
    You
    For being a fuckup expert
    27 September 2019
    

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46. Celebrate your failures and
    what you learned from them
    

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47. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how
    the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have
    done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually
    in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
    who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,
    because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
    who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great
    enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy
    cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
    achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
    daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and
    timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
    — Theodore Roosevelt
    

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48. Köszönöm! ❤
    @silveira_bells
    @silveira_bells
    

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