AN ARCHIVE OF WHAT WENT WRONG. AND WHY.

Failure is not the
opposite of knowledge.
It is evidence.

THE MUSEUM, EXPLAINED

A living collection of failures across industries. Investigate the decisions, missed signals, and systems behind them.

For anyone building something
that matters.

Our editorial approach

All industries IT & software Startups Engineering Finance Healthcare Public policy + More industries

ON DISPLAY

Every failure has a story.
The useful part is the pattern.

View all cases 90

EXHIBIT 001 / AEROSPACENASA · STS-51L, 1986

ENGINEERING1986 · UNITED STATES

Challenger:
when warnings
weren’t enough.

A technical failure. A chain of decisions. What happens when evidence struggles to travel through an organization?

Official investigation 8 min read

Facebook headquarters at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park; contextual company photograph.

CONTEXT / PHOTOGRAPH

EXHIBIT 002

IT & software2021

Facebook: a network that took itself offline

A backbone configuration change disrupted services and the internal tools needed to restore them.

Coupled dependencies

Technical postmortem 6 min

Illustrative draft · Global · Recovered · High

Silicon Valley Bank headquarters entrance at 3003 West Tasman Drive, Santa Clara; contextual site photograph.

CONTEXT / PHOTOGRAPH

EXHIBIT 003

Finance2023

Silicon Valley Bank: concentrated confidence

Concentrated deposits, interest-rate exposure, and weak risk management left a bank vulnerable to a run.

Concentration risk

Official investigation 7 min

Illustrative draft · United States · Failed · Critical

First page of the 25 January 2016 CMS letter to Theranos concerning its Newark laboratory; regulatory-document context preceding the 2018 SEC action.

CONTEXT / SOURCE DOCUMENT

EXHIBIT 005

Startups2018

Theranos: when the promise outran the proof

The SEC challenged claims about blood-testing technology and investor disclosures.

Unvalidated assumptions

Regulatory documentation 5 min

Illustrative draft · United States · Regulatory action · High

A collection in progress. These source-backed synopses are illustrative editorial drafts. Open a case to inspect the evidence and its limits.

A DIFFERENT WAY TO LOOK

Look beyond
the last mistake.

Failures emerge from the spaces between decisions, defenses, and dependencies. A framework helps you see what a headline misses.

Find a framework

THE SWISS CHEESE MODEL / JAMES REASON

Conceptual illustration of imperfect defenses. Not a reconstruction of a specific incident. Source: Reason, BMJ (2000).

KNOWLEDGE TO CARRY FORWARD

Study the past.
Ask better questions of the future.

BUILDERS

Failure is not the
opposite of knowledge.
It is evidence.

Every failure has a story.
The useful part is the pattern.

Challenger:
when warnings
weren’t enough.

Facebook: a network that took itself offline

Silicon Valley Bank: concentrated confidence

Theranos: when the promise outran the proof

Look beyond
the last mistake.

Study the past.
Ask better questions of the future.

What are we assuming?

Where could failure propagate?

Whose warning are we missing?

Failure is not theopposite of knowledge.It is evidence.

Every failure has a story.The useful part is the pattern.

Challenger: when warnings weren’t enough.

Facebook: a network that took itself offline

Silicon Valley Bank: concentrated confidence

Theranos: when the promise outran the proof

Look beyondthe last mistake.

Study the past.Ask better questions of the future.

What are we assuming?

Where could failure propagate?

Whose warning are we missing?

Failure is not the
opposite of knowledge.
It is evidence.

Every failure has a story.
The useful part is the pattern.

Challenger:
when warnings
weren’t enough.

Look beyond
the last mistake.

Study the past.
Ask better questions of the future.