But life is not a portfolio: not for a startup founder, and not for any individual. An entrepreneur cannot “diversify” herself: you cannot run dozens of companies at the same time and then hope that one of them works out well. Less obvious but just as important, an individual cannot diversify his own life by keeping dozens of equally possible caree

Thiel wrote Zuckerberg a check for $500,000. Eight years later, he sold most of his stake in Facebook for roughly a billion dollars. Thiel saw past the False Fail of Friendster, just as Endo saw past the False Fails of the statins and Folkman saw past the False Fails of his blood-vessel inhibitors.