If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success -Reid Hoffman

An interesting and thought provoking quote by Reid Hoffman. For those that do not know Reid, he is the co-founder of Linkedin and a member of the original Paypal Mafia (which include Elon Musk, Peter Thiel …).

The full quote is as follows:

If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success. The key is to look at ways for when you get to your failure checkpoint, you know to stop.

 -Reid Hoffman

Honestly i am not sure i understand this second part of this quote as the author intended the meaning, but here’s what i got:

If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success:

Tune it to have zero chance of failure, means taking no risks, doing nothing that wasn’t done before. In that case, you grantee failure and will have zero chance of success, because you have nothing new on the table, you would be either just a copycat or an iteration that can be imitated easily with little effort and problems.

The second part, “The key is to look at ways for when you get to your failure checkpoint, you know to stop.“:

No entirely sure, but i think it is trying to reach the point of failure and then stopping just shy of that, or taking it to the extreme. Or maybe create a system that avoids entering the solution in this failure checkpoint.

However, to comment on this quote in general. In tech especially, if you do not have something new, you are less likely to succeed, and anything new can not have a guaranteed success. For a business entrepreneurship point of view (none tech), this quote does not really apply.