Amazon devices chief Panos Panay on the importance of failure and bouncing back from it
- ID
- 36000
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 16 Oct 2026, 4:38 AM
- Fetched
- 16 Oct 2026, 4:50 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/15/amazon-devices-chief-panos-panay-on-the-importance-of-failure-and-bouncing-back-from-it/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 3.0
- Created
- 16 Oct 2026, 4:51 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_startup_founders
What happened
At TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Amazon SVP of Devices, Alexa, and Leo Panos Panay told startup founders that failure is a required part of building a successful product, citing Microsoft's Surface RT launch as a significant failure that led to a nearly $1 billion write-down. He said the hard part is not admitting failure but tracing it back to decisions made up to two years earlier, such as incomplete software, wrong inventory, or retail balancing.
Why it matters
For SaaS/startup founders, the concrete takeaway is to run a pre-launch assumption audit on software completeness, inventory, and channel/retail balance rather than only doing a launch-day retro. There is no new tooling, pricing, policy, or Malaysia/SEA builder impact in this item, so treat it as conference advice rather than an operating playbook.
Discussion angle
Use Surface RT's nearly $1 billion write-down to ask: which decisions two years before a failed launch are most often ignored in your team — software scope, inventory forecasts, or channel/retail commitments?