Most people instinctively avoid failure's company, yet Gates understands that success teaches us only what *already* works—while failure, uncomfortable as it is, reveals the boundaries we didn't know existed. The deeper truth here concerns *attention*: celebrating feels natural and requires no effort, but extracting wisdom from missteps demands the harder work of honest examination. A young entrepreneur might launch three failed ventures before the fourth succeeds, but that fourth victory means little without understanding exactly what the first three taught her about market timing, customer needs, and her own blind spots. Gates built his empire partly on acknowledging that Microsoft's early stumbles shaped better decisions later—not because failure felt good, but because he was disciplined enough to learn from it rather than simply move past it.