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"How hard can it be to take down Facebook?" with Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm (video)
Blog, Interviews, Learning from Failure Nikko Kennedy Blog, Interviews, Learning from Failure Nikko Kennedy

"How hard can it be to take down Facebook?" with Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm (video)

Mark Coopersmith has a fireside chat with Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm about Arnaud's 6-year journey as co-founder of a startup whose mission was to create a *better* option to Facebook. We discuss Arnaud's takeaways from that experience, and delve into the book Arnaud wrote about that failed venture: "How Hard Can It Be: Startup Lessons From Trying (And Failing) To Take Down Facebook." (Answer: pretty hard).

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The Resilient Entrepreneur
Blog, Learning from Failure Mark Coopersmith Blog, Learning from Failure Mark Coopersmith

The Resilient Entrepreneur

In this video series, my co-author John Danner and I share insights about The Resilient Entrepreneur from our entrepreneurship classes at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and from our Amazon bestseller, "The Other 'F' Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work" (John Wiley & Sons, 2015).

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The Other "F" Word Podcast #7: Experimentation, & RIP Mr. Post-It Notes (video)

The Other "F" Word Podcast #7: Experimentation, & RIP Mr. Post-It Notes (video)

In this episode, John Danner and I discuss the importance of experimentation to drive innovation and change, and the role that having a healthy relationship with failure has in the way we process the outcomes of all of these experiments, and especially business experiments.

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The Other "F" Word Podcast #6: USA's failing infrastructure, and J&J's vaccine issues (video)

The Other "F" Word Podcast #6: USA's failing infrastructure, and J&J's vaccine issues (video)

In this episode: – Mark raises America’s embarrassing, ongoing failing infrastructure, with some suggestions on how to pay for it. Not necessarily tax increases, but rather equitable tax reform. – John discusses several failures at drug company Johnson & Johnson relating to their vaccine, from the manufacturing contamination issue to the on-again/off-again/on-again approval.

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Is there a failure in the making at Amazon (video)?

Is there a failure in the making at Amazon (video)?

Check out Episode 4 of "The Other 'F' Word" podcast. John and I discuss Kobe Bryant's helicopter crash, Jeff Bezos stepping back from the CEO role, and the "Goldilocks-zone" for checklists (= just right). Is there a failure in the making at Amazon? Do you know how to optimize YOUR checklists? Join us for 10 minutes to find out our take.

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Gravity, and how it can be a force for good (video)

Gravity, and how it can be a force for good (video)

Boeing has been in freefall for awhile now (“freefall” is probably a bad analogy for an aviation company), and this week announced their biggest loss ever and yet another delay in their space program and in the launch of their next big jet. In our latest Other F Word podcast, John and I dissect what went wrong, what to learn from it, and what we would recommend they do. Plus John riffs on the concept of “gravity” and how he can be used as a “force for good.”

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New Year's resolutions (video)

New Year's resolutions (video)

I just published episode #2 (!!) of the "Other 'F' Word Podcast," where my co-author John Danner and I discuss/dissect/disagree re: current failures, what we can learn from them, and how to bounce back and improve. All in about 10 minutes. This week's topics: New Years' Resolutions; the insurrection and riots in Washington, and the botched painfully slow COVID vaccine rollout. Check it out on YouTube, with expanded distribution coming soon.

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I Just Launched My New Podcast (video)

I Just Launched My New Podcast (video)

I just launched a new podcast based on my book "The Other 'F' Word," co-authored with my UC Berkeley colleague John Danner. And we cohost the podcast as well. We figured if NOW wasn't a good time to learn from our collective failures (goodbye and good riddance 2020), there might never be such a time. Check it out.

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