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16 Most Inspiring Famous Failures
To succeed in business, blog or in life. I come to realize that we must continually take remedial actions. Putting myself on the line day after day can be extremely draining, especially when things do not work out as I desired. Hence, each time I face a disappointing event or undesirable outcome, I NEVER FORGET these famous failures:
Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, has literally changed the work culture of the world in the 21st century, by simplifying the way computer is being used. He happens to be the world’s richest man for the last one decade. However, in the 70’s before starting out, he was a Harvard University dropout. The most ironic part is that, he started a software company (that was soon to become Microsoft) by purchasing the software technology from “someone” for only $US50 back then.
Abraham Lincoln, received no more than 5 years of formal education throughout his lifetime. When he grew up, he joined politics and had 12 major failures before he was elected the 16th President of the United States of America.
Isaac Newton was the greatest English mathematician of his generation. His work on optics and gravitation made him one of the greatest scientists the world has even known. Many thought that Isaac was born a genius, but he wasn’t! When he was young, he did very poorly in grade school, so poor that his teachers became clueless in improving his grades.
Ludwig van Beethoven, a German composer of classical music, is widely regarded as one of history’s supreme composers. His reputation has inspired - and in many cases intimidated - composers, musicians, and audiences who were to come after him. Before the start of his career, Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him “as a composer, he is hopeless”. And during his career, he lost his hearing yet he managed to produce great music - a deaf man composing music, ironic isn’t!
Thomas Edison who developed many devices which greatly influenced life in the 20th century. Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S patents to his name. When he was a boy his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. When he set out on his own, he tried more than 9,000 experiments before he created the first successful light bulb.
The Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original five-and-ten-cent stores. The first Woolworth’s store was founded in 1878 by Frank Winfield Woolworth and soon grew to become one of the largest retail chains in the world in the 20th century. Before starting his own business, Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21. But his employer would not let him serve any customer because he concluded that Frank “didn’t have enough common sense to serve the customers”.
By acclamation, Michael Jordon is the greatest basketball player of all time. A phenomenal athlete with a unique combination of grace, speed, power, artistry, improvisational ability and an unquenchable competitive desire. Jordan single-handedly redefined the NBA superstar. Before joining NBA, Jordan was just an ordinary person, so ordinary that was cut from high school basketball team because of his “lack of skill”.
Walter Disney was American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator. One of the most well-known motion picture producers in the world, Disney founded a production company. The corporation, now known as The Walt Disney company, makes average revenue of US $30 billion annually. Disney started his own business from his home garage and his very first cartoon production went bankrupt. During his first press conference, a newspaper editor ridiculed Walt Disney because he had no good ideas in film production.
Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade. However, that never stopped him to work harder! He strived and eventually became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in Britain and world history. In a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002 to identify the “100 Greatest Britons”, participants voted Churchill as the most important of all.
Steven Spielberg is an American film director. He has won 3 Academy Awards an ranks among the most successful filmmakers in history. Most of all, Steven was recognized as the financially most successful motion picture director of all time. During his childhood, Spielberg dropped out of junior high school. He was persuaded to come back and was placed in a learning-disabled class. He only lasted a month and then dropped out of school forever.
Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 and “for his services to Theoretical Physics”. However, when Einstein was young, his parents thought he was mentally retarded. His grades in school were so poor that a teacher asked him to quit, saying, “Einstein, you will never amount to anything!”
In 1947, one year into her contract, Marilyn Monroe was dropped by 20th Century-Fox because her producer thought she was unattractive and cannot act. That didn’t deter her at all! She kept on going and eventually she was recognized by the public as the 20th century’s most famous movie star, sex symbol and pop icon.
John Grisham’s first novel was rejected by sixteen agents and twelve publishing houses. He went on writing and writing until he became best known as a novelist and author for his works of modern legal drama. The media has coined him as one of the best novel authors even alive in the 21st century.
Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed. That did not stop him from incorporating Ford Motor Company and being the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the production of affordable automobiles in the world. He not only revolutionized industrial production in the United States and Europe, but also had such influence over the 20th century economy and society. His combination of mass production, high wages and low prices to consumers has initiated a management school known as “Fordism”. He became one of the three most famous and richest men in the world during his time.
Soichiro Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation during a job interview as “engineer” after World War Two. He continued to be jobless until his neighbors starting buying his “home-made scooters”. Subsequently, he set out on his own to start his own company. Honda. Today, the Company has grown to become the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and one of the most profitable automakers - beating giant automaker such as GM and Chrysler. With a global network of 437 subsidiaries, Honda develops, manufactures, and markets a wide variety of products ranging from small general-purpose engines and scooters to specialty sports cars.
Akio Morita, founder of giant electric household products, Sony Corporation, first product was an electric rice cooker, only sold 100 cookers (because it burned rice rather than cooking). Today, Sony is generating US$66 billion in revenue and ranked as the world’s 6th largest electronic and electrical company.
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[...] doing what you think will work and improving from it, until you reach your success. In fact, Kenneth Foo wrote a blog entry about 16 Most Inspiring Famous [...]
In regard to Thomas Edison. The only real success he enjoyed in his life was that of plagiarism. He pointedly did not invent the light bulb! British inventor Joseph Swann patented a working light bulb at least 2 years before Edison declared he had just invented it.
Dave,
N. Testa I may have his name wrong was apparently ripped off by Edison who was envious of Testa. Edison is a fraud!
dean
Your comments on Bill Gates are incorrect. He dropped out of Harvard after using the university computer system to create an programing language to operate the MITS Altair 8800. His dropping out of Harvard does not constitute as a failure as he took a leave of absence and just never returned due to the success he developed.
Also he has not been THE worlds richest man, rather has been on top of the list for the past decade.
And he did not purchase software from “someone” for US$50, rather what became Microsoft DOS was purchased by Paul Allen for US$50,000.
You may like to check your facts more accurately.
And to Dave comments above, Edison’s success was in developing a working light bulb was that it lasted longer than 40 hours. Swan light bulbs would burn out in 40 hours and Edison’s lasted longer than 1500 hours. Quite a mayor difference. And before you jump to credit Joseph Swan, don’t forget about Humphrey Davy and his development of the electric arch, which was as fundamental as that of Swan’s discoveries.
Sony’s first product worked like shite - good to see some things never change……..
To bm
Swann ‘Assisted’ Edison with the development of a better light bulb ( Edison bought the company which owned the patent)
Besides the entry attributes Edison with the creation of the first ’successful’ light bulb. In this regard he is owed only partial credit.
Also Dean is right, Nikola Tesla was a far brighter man than Edison and a more honest one
Dave,
Thank you for the correction as it was Tesla I was searching my memory for all along.
Tesla was apparently given credit in many circles, after his death of course, for being the greatest most influential scientist of his generation.
His plight sounds simliar, and yes this is a low view, of the car genius Tucker. Tucker brought many of today’s standard equipment to market over 60 years ago. Yet the big car companies discredited him as a lunatic while stealing his ideas for their own.
Dean
I think you guys are missing the point of this post/website. . . .It`s to give one the assurance that whenever you fail, that it`s not permanent…you should only keep on trying…one day you`ll be just there were your`e suppose to be. . .
we are all children of the universe, and it unfolds as it should.. wether you like it or not.. you have a right to be here..
I think the common trait all the above guys had was the ability of self promotion/chrisma (or the right people around them to fill this role). Otherwise ”their ideas” would have been credited elsewhere? There are a few genuine genius in the list however who deserve their place unconditionally. A good lesson, thanks, “success is 10% inspiration 90% perspiration”!
A common trait of nearly everyone here, including the poster and commentators, is a lack of spelling ability. A few examples:
chrisma, jordon, plagiarism. And don’t get me started on the misuse of the word “ironic,” and the incredible lack of understanding regarding when to use the dash symbol. This is why the U.S. is going in the toilet. We will soon be taken over by China, and we deserve it.
Very inspiring set of “famous failures” whether or not you happen to be a fan of any particular person on the list.
It reminds me of a story from one of my high school English teachers. She told a student that he couldn’t write and to forget pursuing it. That student turned out to be…Woody Allen.
[...] think will work and improving from your previous mistakes, until you reach your success. In fact, Kenneth Foo wrote a blog entry about 16 Most Inspiring Famous [...]
Aaron; that is how plagiarism is spelt. You certainly prove your first point nicely….
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
Your info on Einstein is false. As it turns out, his elementary schools used a “reverse” grading system, in which 5 was best, not worst.
He was the best math student, and even regarded as a mathematicial genius as a child.
He left Germany for Switzerland, and tried to get into the best Uni there a year early. He failed that entrance exam, because he didn’t have certain Liberal arts knowledge. But, after a year a their best prep school, he got in.
His Phd thesis was brilliant. But, he didn’t fit in because he was Jewish, and didn’t “suck up”–so he ended up without the usual entry level unpaid job at a uni.
His solution was to write brilliant research papers and after a few years as a junior level government patent scientist
( called clerk, but not a clerk as we might know the term), he got a job at the very same top uni–with pay as a professor.
Tesla fans out to check out “Charles Proteus Steinmetz”, who did most of the things that they think that Tesla did.
This includes the efficent balanced alternating current grid, the efficent transformer, the first artifical lightening etc.
Also, Telsa’s “polyphase system” was patented by others in Europe before he repatented it in America. He did not invent radio either—that was done by James Clerk Maxwell, who created the equations that predicted the Radio wave;
by Michael Faraday, who suggested the idea of a radio wave and formulated the law of induction; by Ampere, Gauss etc, mathematicians who helped create the equations;
and by Hertz who did the trivial experiment that verified the existence of radio waves.
Tesla was a great showman–who knew how to get headlines.
Tesla had a Phd equivalent in physics from the University of London and undergraduate physics degrees from a top Serbia Uni. Steinmetz had a Phd in math from a top German Uni.
Edison had nothing. Here is an Edison Quote from a patent fight with someone:
” I also steal, but I know how to steal!”
Most of the inventions he is given any credit for were actually invented by his team of scientists at his lab. It was part of the contract that your invention belonged ( even to the credit for the discovery ) to Edison.
Typo in previous post:
replace “out to ” with “ought to”.
It is hard to type with the flu!!
Appreciate all the advices…
[...] Most Inspiring Famous Failures [...]
[...] Most Inspiring Famous Failures [...]
Good list, but I take issue with this about John Grisham:
“The media has coined him as one of the best novel authors even alive in the 21st century.”
First off, I think you mean to say “he’s one of the best novelists of the 21st century”. Number two, who in the media has coined John Grisham, of all authors, one of the best of the 21st century!? There’s no question he’s one of the bestselling authors of the 21st century, but I have never heard anyone rank him as one of the best novelists alive.
Edison’s bulb lasted long because Edison had the good German vacuum pump. His failures at the light bulb stopped when the good German vacuum pump arrives.
To wit, Edison didn’t invent the light bulb.
Once he had his “invention factory” all his inventions were invented by his team of scientists–who were required by contract to give not only rights but CREDIT to Edison.
” I also steal, but I know how to steal.”–Edison.
As a young man, he might have invented an improved multiplex telegraph and a stock ticker–but as a documented major thief, anything he patented is suspect.
If Gates had never existed, we would have been running Unix
on workstations at home. It would have been better.
Gates invented nothing, and windows was far inferior to Unix. For those who wanted on screen windows, Xwindows ( in unix) would have been the way.
Microsoft was a step backwards for computing.
He got rich. Ok, that’s success of a kind.
We could add Steven King–who started out living in a trailer and by writing drivel now earns forty million a year.
” I am the Macdonalds of literature”–Steven King.
Hey penny, it’s very interesting just to read what you know in the comment.
Where did you get all these from?
Dear Kenneth,
I read a lot, and I have a nearly eidetic memory.
Steinmetz was a hero of mine in childhood–so I looked up his stuff as an adult. My dad knew Tesla, Steinmetz and Edison, long before I was born.
I knew three people directly connected with Einstein:
Helen Dukas ( former director of the Einstein Archives)
, and two of Einstein’s former math assistants.
But, mostly, I read a lot.
Great article. It’s very motivational and I like the hole concept of it. The are always people who think they know every detail about Bill Gates and Albert Einstein and so on. But that’s not important. Geniuses aren’t born, they are made. It’s like Churchill once said: “Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam.”
It turns out that Lilenthal patented the “Tesla” coil.
Tesla was a complete fraud!
Haris, Geniuses are not made–they are Born. They have far better brains than others.
“Genius beats talent and persistence, but genius plus hard work and persistence beats genius”–Penny
People are obsessed with tbe lives of famous geniuses because they want to see how genius is made–but, genius is not made, geniuses just have the stuff!!
[...] 16 Most Inspiring Famous Failures [...]
Good stories to remember when one wants to quit persuing their goals.
I’ll keep these in mind. Glad I found this page.