The Audacity of Massive Failure - If You Are Going to Fail in Business, Fail Big

It's become increasingly clear to me that if you are going to fail in business, you better make sure you fail as big and spectacularly as you can. There's really no sense in failing with a small business since large failure is much more respected and understood in the US.

Take the case of Lehman Brothers. It was a truly epic and spectacular failure as the largest bankruptcy in global history. For perspective, Lehman had $691 billion in assets. The next biggest bankrupty was Washington Mutual at $328 billion. Enron had assets of $65.5 billion.

It's now becoming clear that Lehman engaged in deceptive accounting practices at the best, and fraudulent behavior at the worst. According to a report issued by the Southern District Court of Manhattan on the bankruptcy:

"“Lehman employed off-balance sheet devices, known within Lehman as ‘Repo 105’ and ‘Repo 108’ transactions, to temporarily remove securities inventory from its balance sheet, usually for a period of seven to ten days, and to create a materially misleading picture of the firm’s financial condition in late 2007 and 2008.”

As far as I can tell, no Lehman execs are in handcuffs or are on the front page of the WSJ for these tranfressions.

Now, let's switch to Park Avenue Bank which was shut last Friday by the FDIC. The community bank which had $500 million in assets specialized in real estate loans and piled up $27 million in losses over the past year. Its CEO and President Charles J. Antonucci Sr. is accused of making false statements to regulators in an effort to obtain about $11 million from the U.S. government's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

There's a picture on the front page of the WSJ online of him being led out in handcuffs and looking frumpy and unshaven, wearing a red hoodie.

Now, this isn't the only example. I've noticed that the entrepreneurs behind the biggest failures, or the ones that lose venture capitalists the most money, are usually successful at raising money for another business. Those that have modest successes or lose a small amount are forgotten.

The bottom line is that society appreciates the audacity of failing big. To change the title of a book written by President Obama, our society respects the Audacity of Massive Failure.

So, if you are going to start something or do something, do it big. Because even if you fail, your massive failure will be viewed as a success in and of itself.