The second goal is to reinforce the culture of failing―and learning―fast. Failure is the byproduct of good testing. “Our test success rate is about 10%,” says Jesse Nichols, head of web and app analytics and growth at Nest. “But we learn something from all our tests.”
.. An experiment gone wrong doesn’t have to mean someone goofed. In a culture of growth, it should mean that you tried something new, measured the results, and learned that the change didn’t help the bottom line. If your tests are always successful, you’re probably not testing often enough or aggressively enough.
.. “If you view your optimization program as a strategic method for learning about your customers and prospects—for truly understanding their mindset—rather than a tactical tweaking program, you can take a broader perspective and find the gains in every test.”
I don’t want Trump to succeed. I want him to fail spectacularly.
But make no mistake — success for Trump would be a disaster for America. If his campaign promises are to be taken at face value, his success would mean that tens of millions of Americans may lose health care insurance. It would mean a step back on fighting climate change that could have a catastrophic, even apocalyptic effect on the planet. It would mean a shredded social safety net and little federal attention to voting restrictions and structural racism in America’s criminal justice system. It would mean global instability and a weakening of American’s leadership role in the world. It would mean acquiescence to an assertive Russia and a weakening of the international institutions that help to maintain global order. It would mean disastrous trade wars and a domestic agenda that would do more to harm the people who voted for Trump than help them. It would mean mass deportation — and a humanitarian catastrophe — for millions of undocumented immigrants.
What Drives Donald Trump? Fear of Losing Status, Tapes Show
Why such a harsh judgment? Because in Mr. Trump’s eyes, Mr. Hall had suffered the most grievous form of public humiliation: His celebrity had waned. His star had dimmed.
.. The recordings reveal a man who is fixated on his own celebrity, anxious about losing his status and contemptuous of those who fall from grace. They capture the visceral pleasure he derives from fighting, his willful lack of interest in history, his reluctance to reflect on his life and his belief that most people do not deserve his respect.
In the interviews, Mr. Trump makes clear just how difficult it is for him to imagine — let alone accept — defeat.
“I never had a failure,” Mr. Trump said in one of the interviews, despite his repeated corporate bankruptcies and business setbacks, “because I always turned a failure into a success.”
.. “No, I don’t want to think about it,” he said when Mr. D’Antonio asked him to contemplate the meaning of his life. “I don’t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see.”
.. Who does he look up to? “I don’t have heroes,” Mr. Trump said.
Does he examine history to better understand the present? “I don’t like talking about the past,” he said, later adding, “It’s all about the present and the future.”
.. Who earns his respect? “For the most part,” he said, “you can’t respect people because most people aren’t worthy of respect.”
.. But he always seems to return, in one form or another, to the theme of humiliation.
.. He reserves special scorn for people who embarrass themselves in front of their peers.
.. When people lose face, Mr. Trump’s reaction is swift and unforgiving.
And when Mr. Trump feels he has been made a fool of, his response can be volcanic. Ivana Trump told Mr. D’Antonio about a Colorado ski vacation she took with Mr. Trump soon after they began dating. The future Mrs. Trump had not told her boyfriend that she was an accomplished skier. As she recalls it, Mr. Trump went down the hill first and waited for her at the bottom:
IVANA TRUMP: So he goes and stops, and he says, “Come on, baby. Come on, baby.” I went up. I went two flips up in the air, two flips in front of him. I disappeared. Donald was so angry, he took off his skis, his ski boots, and walked up to the restaurant. … He could not take it. He could not take it.
.. But it was not enough for Mr. Trump to become an object of media fascination. He took pleasure in knowing that such coverage was denied to almost everybody else.
.. By the time he was an established businessman, Mr. Trump hired a service to compile the swelling number of references to him in the media, which he then reviewed. “There are thousands of them a day,” he told Mr. D’Antonio. “Thousands, thousands a day.”
.. Ultimately, Mr. Trump fears — more than anything else — being ignored, overlooked or irrelevant.
That’s how he saw Arsenio Hall in the 2000s, as forgotten and ungrateful for his time on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” Mr. Trump’s reality television competition, which Mr. Hall won in 2012.
.. But he quickly retreats from the moment, declining Mr. D’Antonio’s invitation to further explain how the song makes him feel about himself, saying he might not like what he discovers.
An Open Letter From Ted Nelson
I feel as if I have not succeeded. I invented hypertext, I coined phrases and developed internet theory, I founded “ibm”, I’ve done some incredible things with my life. But my main project, and my ultimate passion has never been finished. Thus, you’re all missing out, and it looks as if you will all continue to miss out because the development of the internet has surpassed my control.