on typos, failure, and growth

Fred Wilson, the venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures and author of avc.com, recently posted about typos.

I sometimes feel the urge to reach out to people via the internet (itself an amazing opportunity that wasn’t available in the not so distant past). Today was one of those day. This is what I wrote:

Mr. Wilson,

[…] Today’s post about typos struck me (and perhaps motivated me to reply as it was motivated by replies itself). While yes, humans are fallible and to pretend to be otherwise would be foolish, I would argue it’s equally true that most are unsatisfied with that as a final outcome. We strive. In striving we create and grow.

Being aware of our failures is an opportunity to learn about ourselves and apply that lesson to the future.

In fact, I think that’s what you’ve done with this post - you’ve created a learning out of a mistake.

So, it’s not that I disagree with you. It’s that I think you could have taken it one step further. While you and AVC, a representation of you, will undoubtably be imperfect, they’re also growing and evolving - mistakes are just one of many sources of fuel for the journey.

Sincerely,
Stephen