From the Editor

It might seem strange, at first blush, that Supreme Court ­Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76 would share a message with young entrepreneurs working nonstop on a startup. But they do, and it’s not a message about success. It’s about failure — and why we shouldn’t fear it.

Students come to Princeton with stunning records of accomplishment: sky-high test scores, college-level classes, recognition as artists and athletes. What’s not on those CVs, I suspect, is any record of failure. The stakes for most students are too high to leave the proven path to college or grad school — why risk a bad grade to explore a new and challenging interest when your transcript lists straight A’s?

J.K. Rowling, who spent years in poverty before writing the Harry Potter series, answered that question at ­Harvard’s commencement in 2008. “Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations,” she said. “I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.”

In this issue, Mark F. Bernstein ’83 reports on Princetonians who were unafraid to fail: young alumni and ­students intent on building companies; a young Latina who leapt into the unfamiliar on her way to the nation’s highest court. Most startups fail, and yet entrepreneurs consider failure essential. There’s no better guide for improving your product.

Sotomayor, speaking about her Princeton experience, told PAW that ­mentors should help instill “the courage to fail.” That’s harder to attain than a polished résumé, but as Rowling said at Harvard, it’s “a true gift ... worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”