FailCon: Celebrating High Tech's Failures, For Fun and Education

Tired of attending conference after conference in which attendees were regaled with unblemished successes, Cassie Phillipps was inspired to organize FailCon, which went down yesterday at the Kabuki Hotel and which featured panel discussions with startup CEOs and former CEOs talking about their errors and grand failures. Panel members included Max Levchin talking about early failures and missteps with PayPal and Slide, Mark Pinkus talking about the troubles with Tribe.net, and former Friendster CEO Dan Olsen, who now heads YourVersion.com -- a site that finds you new web content tailored to your interests and frequent search terms -- which, for better or worse, won the prize for audience favorite at FailCon.

The point of FailCon was not so much to point and laugh, as for tech people to learn from the failures of others and for those who have known failure to talk it up as an asset. As Phillipps puts it, "Just the idea that your first company bombed, and you get back on that horse, is a huge sign for a VC." We hope everyone learned much, and that everyone got a good laugh from the VC panel where they discussed all their bad investments. Any chance the Bay Bridge people were there? Any other attendees out there? Share your anecdotes.