Amazon devices chief Panos Panay on the importance of failure and bouncing back from it

Amazon Devices chief Panos Panay emphasizes the importance of failure in building successful products. Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Panay, the SVP of Devices, Alexa, and Leo, shared his insights into failure, drawing from his experience at Microsoft where he led numerous teams over the course of his 19-year tenure.

Panay asserted that failure is not only inevitable, but it's also a necessary part of the process. He urged startup founders to be prepared to fail, even if it means embracing the possibility of catastrophic failures. He highlighted his own experience at Microsoft, where the launch of the Surface RT, the company's first tablet, was a significant failure that ultimately led to a nearly $1 billion write-down.

Despite the embarrassment of being on the front page of a newspaper labeled as "failure", Panay emphasized the critical importance of learning from the experience.

Panay explained that the failure was not a single moment but rather a series of decisions that led up to it. He stressed that founders need to be willing to admit failure and, more importantly, learn from it. He cautioned against making excuses and urged founders to accept failure as part of the journey towards success.

He stressed that while it's essential to learn from failure, founders must not lose sight of their vision. Panay recounted how even though the Surface line has done well, he never let go of the original vision. He encouraged founders to adapt and change their approach based on what they've learned, typically adjusting their trajectory by just a few degrees, not changing it entirely.

Panay concluded by stating that the key to moving forward after failure is to learn from it. He reiterated that those who hang on too long without accepting the failure are doing themselves a disservice.