Across the business world, companies often double down on struggling ideas, retreating only after clear evidence shows they won’t work.

A recent spectacular example was Meta’s metaverse push. After the organization invested US$80 billion over several years, it announced changes in March 2026 that all but abandoned its grand strategy.

But many companies are following the opposite approach of quickly walking away from failure instead of blindly sticking to a vision. Google ended its cloud gaming service Stadia when it failed to take off, choosing instead to reuse the technology elsewhere. Mercedes abandoned its zero-sidepod F1 concept once it clearly hit a competitive dead end. And Slack transitioned from a failed gaming app to a ubiquitous intra-office messaging platform.

What drove all these decisions wasn’t a tolerance for failure. Instead, executives read signals of weakness early, confronted inconvenient evidence and changed course before greater losses accumulated. In other words, they embraced “failing fast.”

As business professors who study sales performance and sales failure, we argue that this concept is one of the most important yet most misunderstood ideas in our field. It’s not about celebrating mistakes or lowering standards, nor does it give leaders permission to abandon rigor or give up easily.

At its core, it’s about creating the conditions for faster learning: building the managerial discipline to recognize when an opportunity is unlikely to pay off, stopping before sunk costs deepen, and redirecting scarce resources to more promising bets. And this is a strategy that can work for any company, at any level, no matter how high or low the stakes.

The Slack model

Slack is everywhere these days. But few recall that it was actually founded in 2011 as a multiplayer online game called Glitch that failed to take off. The company, then known as Tiny Speck, shut it down in 2012, but in the process its leaders identified hidden value in an internal communication tool they had built simply to coordinate their own work.

This practical side project looked like a tool that could do well in the burgeoning market for team-collaboration software. So the company pivoted by deploying its remaining capital and talent to launch Slack in 2013. Since that time, Slack has become one of the fastest-growing enterprise software platforms in history, eventually leading to a $27.7 billion acquisition by the business platform Salesforce in 2021.

Stories like these are often told as tales of persistence, but they’re actually examples of disciplined quitting. Similar cases include 3M’s accidental invention of Post-it Notes (first used as ad hoc bookmarks for hymnals); Shopify’s pivot from selling snowboards to enabling e-commerce infrastructure; and Instagram’s shift from a cluttered check-in app to a focused photo-sharing platform.

Together, these stories suggest that success depends not only on staying the course but also on recognizing early when the course is no longer worth pursuing and changing to a better one.

Know when (and how) to fold ‘em

Despite this history, much of business culture still promotes a simpler message that grit drives success.

This mindset, however, can also foster a sunk cost fallacy. Myriad examples of this trap linger across business lore to this day: Blockbuster failing to accept an offer to purchase Netflix and instead expanding its physical footprint model; Kodak inventing digital cameras but opting to prioritize its dominant film business; and the persistent joint venture funding of the Concord supersonic airliner despite strong evidence that the project wouldn’t become commercially viable. All three businesses eventually went bankrupt after once dominating their respective industry.

Sunk costs, in short, come into direct tension with notions of failing fast. But our research underscores the latter’s benefits, showing that associated payoffs extend beyond high-profile corporate pivots and even apply to everyday decision-making. Studies in business-to-business sales, for example, find that walking away early from low-potential opportunities can improve motivation and performance.

That said, there’s an important condition: This approach only works when executives and customer-facing personnel have a grounded understanding of what the company can do and what customers want – rather than treating early exit as a suboptimal default.

Across these varied cases, our research has pointed to another clear pattern that emerges: Failing fast is typically structured in a way to make decisions under uncertainty, with three distinct stages. Again, the origin story of Slack is a good example.

The first step is to gather information that suggests whether any given project will succeed. These signals can come from direct observation or data. The goal is to build an early, evidence-based picture of whether an effort is gaining traction. In the case of Slack, CEO Stewart Butterfield and his team recognized through direct user experience that Glitch, the game, just wasn’t fun. But they also saw other signals that showed structural limitations preventing a viable path to succeed on mobile devices.

The next step is to interpret the collected data – combining experience, contextual awareness and analytical tools to distinguish between ideas that warrant investment and those that don’t. Structured approaches, like comparing goals to historical benchmarks, can make sure that assessments are consistent and grounded in evidence rather than intuition alone. In Slack’s case with Glitch, Butterfield synthesized the early signals and concluded that, despite significant sunk costs, the game didn’t justify further resources.

The final and most difficult step is execution. When signals and analysis point to early exit as the most effective course, acting on that conclusion is hard. Withdrawing, even when continuing no longer makes strategic sense, feels counterintuitive in an environment that rewards persistence. That’s why executives need to make the case that there’s a smarter way to allocate time, capital and attention. With Slack, Butterfield followed through on his analytical convictions by shutting down the game and repurposing internal technology to create Slack – reframing this “failure” as a strategic reallocation.

A lesson for everyone

These lessons extend far beyond the world of sales, startup culture and Big Tech. Managers face similar choices in product development, partnerships and hiring – situations where the real risk is not failure, but failing late. This way, strong organizations understand how to fail by design. That is, defining success and failure criteria early, testing assumptions quickly and containing any downside before commitment becomes wasteful. These are, in fact, universal lessons that apply across industries, up and down the chain.

As a more poetic analogy, we turn to the sea. No skilled sailor tries to cross every channel. Some waters will test their endurance, while others will open up new routes. The best sailors prove sound judgment by reading the winds early and changing course before a storm takes hold.

Business leaders face the same choice. Growth comes from neither persistence alone nor reflexive retreat, but from knowing when the effort no longer creates value.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

In 2023, Texas passed a law aimed at improving K-12 students’ reading. In part, it called for a required reading list to spell out “at least one literary work to be taught in each grade level.”

An initial list named about 300 texts – many of them from the Bible. The Texas State Board of Education then cut the list by 100 readings but still included more than a dozen biblical texts.

Debate over the Bible’s place in classrooms, if any, has erupted since the list was published. At the board’s April 10, 2026, meeting, all nine Republican members preliminarily approved the materials, while the five Democrats rejected the list. The board plans to take a final vote in June.

Critics argue that mandatory Bible readings in public schools would violate the religion clauses in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

American courts have considered similar questions for 150 years – with the answer often depending on a lesson’s purpose.

Courts, Bible and schools

The first reported case on the Bible in U.S. schools was in 1872, when the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed a ban against religious instruction in public classrooms. Conversely, 50 years later, the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld an ordinance to start school days with readings from the King James Version of the Bible.

Bible reading first reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963, in the case of School District of Abington Township v. Schempp. This case, from Pennsylvania, was consolidated with a similar one from Maryland, called Murray v. Curlett.

Opponents in both states challenged mandatory Bible readings and prayer at the start of school days. The plaintiffs argued that these activities violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment: that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

The justices struck down both practices, finding that they did not have a secular purpose and that their main effect was to advance religion.

Attempting to allay concerns they were anti-religious, the justices declared, “It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.”

Justice William Brennan’s concurrence added, “The holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching about the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes in literature or history.”

Similarly, in the following decades, lower courts invalidated classes as violating the establishment clause if the subject matter promoted Christianity – teaching it as religious truth rather than discussing the Bible’s literary and historical qualities. In 1981, for instance, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals banned a Bible literature course in Alabama.

Two years later, the 8th Circuit summarily affirmed a judgment striking down a program in Arkansas allowing students to take voluntary Bible classes during school hours.

In 1996, a federal trial court in Mississippi invalidated Bible study classes taught in a rotation with music, physical education and library courses, plus another called A Biblical History of the Middle East. The courts agreed that the classes were unacceptable because they advanced Christianity.

Texas proposal

Returning to Texas, the board’s reading list is far from inclusive. Proposed passages are primarily from a handful of translations of the Bible: the English Standard Version, New International Reader’s Version, King James Version, and one from the Jewish Publication Society. The list does not include translations used by Catholics or sacred texts from non-Jewish and non-Christian faiths.

Texts on the proposed list include well-known biblical lessons such as the Golden Rule for kindergarten, the Parable of the Prodigal Son for first grade, Corinthains’ definition of love for seventh grade, and the Beatitudes for eighth grade – the passage that begins, “Blessed are the poor.” Selections for older students include David and Goliath, The Tower of Babel, and passages from the books of Job and Ecclesiastes – that “for everything there is a season.”

As of now, the proposal permits parents who object to opt their children out of specific readings if they conflict with their religious or moral beliefs.

2 types of teaching

As Brennan noted in Abington, the Supreme Court “plainly does not foreclose teaching about the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes in literature or history.” However, there is a significant difference between objectively teaching about religion and teaching of religion from a faith perspective.

This difference has been important throughout my own career. For 36 years, I have taught law with a special interest in the relationships between religion, law and education. But in addition to my education and law degrees, I hold a master’s degree in divinity. I previously taught religion, social studies and law to high school students, while teaching college theology part time.

Teaching religion at two Catholic high schools before and after law school, my job was to inculcate Roman Catholic values in my students. Conversely, teaching theology to adult students, I emphasized 11th-century theologian Anselm of Canterbury’s dictum that theology represents “faith seeking understanding.” In other words, my goal was to enable them to make their own judgments about whether to follow religious teachings.

In many cases, I have argued that increasing religious practices in public life is constitutional. My concern about Texas, however, is that the readings fail to distinguish between teaching about and of religion. Expanding students’ horizons and advancing tolerance by exposing them to religious perspectives is a good intention. Yet the breadth of selections is hardly inclusive, given its focus primarily on Christianity, to the exclusion of other faiths. Texas certainly can promote teaching about religion to enhance understanding of others, but it must be careful not to teach religion.

Charles J. Russo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Teeth are like tiny biological time capsules. They tell stories about ancient diets and environments long after their owners have died and landscapes have changed.

After bones break down, tooth enamel stays hard and unchanged, even in fossilized teeth that have been buried under sediment and rock for millions of years and are now being uncovered by erosion or excavation.

Tooth enamel forms when an animal is young, and it remains chemically stable for the rest of that animal’s life. The food an animal eats and the water it drinks during its youth leave chemical signals within the enamel.

Because of that, hidden within the enamel of fossilized teeth, scientists can find traces of extinct forests, expanding savanna grasslands, shifting climates and evolving animal communities.

Over the past 30 years, my colleagues and I have been analyzing chemical traces in fossil teeth from Ethiopia’s Afar region in the East African Rift Valley – often referred to as the cradle of humanity – to uncover what animals ate there millions of years ago, around the time early human ancestors were evolving, and what the world looked like around them.

These clues from ancient meals are enabling scientists to reconstruct pictures of entire ecosystems, including forests, wetlands and grasslands that existed at the time. It’s a reminder that in a very real sense, organisms are what they eat.

Traces of ancient diets in fossil teeth

To determine which plants ancient animals ate, my colleagues and I collect a small amount of enamel powder from fossilized teeth. We then analyze this powder in the laboratory using specialized instruments that detect chemical signals preserved in the enamel.

Trees and grasses have different ways of using photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy. These methods leave distinct chemical patterns in plant tissues, which then become incorporated into the teeth of animals that eat those plants.

By examining these chemical patterns in tooth enamel, we can determine whether animals primarily fed on trees and shrubs or on grass, providing insight into the vegetation that once covered the ancient landscape.

We can then figure out how an environment changed over time by collecting fossil teeth from different rock layers. Each layer formed at a different time in the past, so teeth found in deeper layers are typically older than those closer to the surface.

By analyzing tooth enamel from fossils across these layers, we can compare the chemical signals preserved in the teeth and see how animal diets and the plants growing in the landscape changed through time.

Adding that knowledge to data from different types of fossils, we can track long-term shifts in vegetation, climate and ecosystems.

A changing landscape in the last 4 million years

Four million years ago, the Afar region looked very different from the dry landscape you will see there today.

Fossils, including tooth enamel, reveal that the area supported a diverse range of environments. Rivers flowed through wooded areas, lakes were scattered across the landscape, and grassy plains stretched across the basin.

Fossilized teeth from animals like antelopes, giraffes, pigs, horses, hippos and elephants show a wide range of diets. Some animals browsed on leaves and shrubs, while others grazed on grass in open habitats.

The chemical signals in the teeth indicate that grasslands were expanding at the time, but forests still played an important role. They show that animals moved through this environment and adapted to the food sources around them.

Around 2 million to 3 million years ago, the environment shifted more drastically toward open grasslands.

The East African Rift Valley gets its shape from three tectonic plates that have been slowly pulling apart. This tectonic activity has changed the landscape over time, altering the regional climate and drainage. Two to three million years ago, it helped shift environments from more wooded habitats to a mix of grasslands and open savannas.

Animals that relied on grass flourished, and the populations of those that didn’t adapt declined. Horses and certain antelopes, for example, developed teeth that could grind tough, gritty plants. This adaptation is recorded on their enamel.

Early humans in a mosaic world

Early human ancestors, like the famous “Lucy,” whose skeleton was discovered in the Afar region, lived in this dynamic landscape.

Fossil teeth from Australopithecus afraensis, an early human that lived in eastern Africa between about 2.9 million and 3.8 million years ago, indicate that early human relatives did not rely heavily on grass. Instead, the chemical signal in their enamel indicates mixed diets and dietary flexibility, which included fruits, leaves and roots, depending on what was available.

In a landscape that combined woodland patches and open savanna, that adaptability may have been key to survival.

This period of environmental change coincided with several important evolutionary developments and morphological changes in pre-humans. Early human ancestors were walking upright. Brain size also gradually increased, allowing for more complex behavior and problem-solving.

During this time, early humans began making and using stone tools, marking a major step in technological innovation and helping them adapt to changing environments.

Diet shapes destiny

The dietary changes in the East African Rift Valley over the past 4 million years, documented through tooth enamel, are providing important clues for reconstructing the environment in which humans’ ancestors lived and how those environments changed.

They also show that species that adjusted their diets as landscapes changed were the ones most likely to survive.

This ongoing research helps explore profound questions of how environmental shifts shaped life on Earth, including human trajectories. And that is helping humanity unlock its collective past.

Zelalem Bedaso does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.