I’m currently about halfway through Eric Schmidt’s book: How Google Works, and I’m not really getting that much from it. It reads a little parochial and tame, while the advice it offers is unrealistic. Most companies and CEO’s have a much broader job with many more challenges and a lot harder mountain to climb.

Now don’t get me wrong, Google is a phenomenon and Eric a great leader, but I realised that he’s only run tech companies and he’s never failed. So his advice is geared towards successful tech CEO’s.

So I then got to thinking about the tech startup culture of attending talks given by successful entrepreneurs and I realised that this in turn is a watered down version of the same thing.

So here’s the question… If you are the founder of a fledgling startup and want to learn how to succeed, who’s best to teach you, a successful leader or a complete failure.

My conclusion, learn from losers and get inspiration from leaders.

However in the UK, we are generally more jealous than inspired by success, so for UK readers, ignore successful people, they will waste your time and make you feel inadequate.

Here endeth the lesson.