The message that Amazon executive Panos Panay conveys to entrepreneurs is that failure is an inevitable and necessary part of the process of creating successful products.

“You must be willing to fail, and not just willing; you really have to fail,” said Panay. “If you don’t fail, you might not have pushed the boundaries far enough. Failure is essentially about learning from the experience. You must be willing to face it, and in that process, learn from it.”

Panay indicates that all kinds of failures can be redeemed, even catastrophic ones. He said that he experienced such a failure while working at Microsoft. He described the release of Microsoft's first tablet computer, Surface RT, as a major mistake during his tenure at the company, which ultimately led to a write-down of nearly $1 billion.

“I remember making it to the front page of the newspaper, with the word ‘failure’ written on it,” said Panay. “But the thing is, it’s easy to admit failure. The real trick is always whether one has learned from it, whether one has figured out what happened. So, what have you learned? Because failure is not just that one moment; it’s the decisions made along the way two years prior that led to it. Maybe the software wasn’t finished yet, or there were issues with inventory, or perhaps it was about how we balanced things in the retail channels. There were many steps along the way.”

He said that entrepreneurs need to be willing to figure out where the problems lie, avoid making excuses, and ultimately accept failure.

“There’s another side to it,” he said, “You want to succeed, right? You have to keep moving forward despite that failure, but you can’t give up on your vision. That’s it. Surface is doing quite well right now. You can’t give up on your vision. You can’t break it down.”

Panay emphasizes that it is important to stick to one's vision, learn from experience, and act quickly. He believes that by embracing failure and learning from setbacks, entrepreneurs can adapt to changes and make faster progress, even when encountering new obstacles.

“It brings us back to the same fundamental question: have you learned anything?” he said, “Have you been learning throughout the process? Because if you have been learning continuously, then you have only changed your direction. It’s usually not a 180-degree turn; it’s more like a 30-degree adjustment. Take what you have learned, make slight adjustments, refine your vision as needed, and then move forward. I believe some people persist for too long, but that’s because they never truly come to terms with the moment when failure occurs.”