Naveen Jain

Today, people idolize athletes and celebrities - and yes, highly successful and visionary business people like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but not the innovators who perhaps have not seen such high-flying levels of success. Can anyone name the inventors of GPS, which has such a huge impact on our lives today?

In the business world today, failure is apparently not an option. We need to change this attitude toward failure - and celebrate the idea that only by falling on our collective business faces do we learn enough to succeed down the road.

I started off with a company, InfoSpace, with my own funding. The company was listed among the most successful companies and I went on to start Intelius and Moon Express. Now, I focus my time on using the skills of an entrepreneur to solve many of the grand challenges facing us in the areas of education, healthcare, clean water and energy.

Investors are right to demand a clear path to self-sustainability from every business they invest in, and I believe we should ask for the same from philanthropy.

An entrepreneur is not a person who starts a company, but he is the person who actually solves a problem.

Apple Computer would not have reached its current peak of success if it had feared to roll the dice and launch products that didn't always hit the mark. In the mid-1990s, the company was considered washed up, Steve Jobs had departed, and a string of lackluster product launches unrelated to the company's core business.

Call it the Tiger Mom effect: In the business world today, failure is apparently not an option.

How important is failure - yes, failure - to the health of a thriving, innovative business? So important that Ratan Tata, chairman of India's largest corporation, gives an annual award to the employee who comes up with the best idea that failed.

Early versions of Microsoft Word left a lot to be desired. However, to the company's credit, it quickly learned where Word fell short, made the necessary changes, and repeatedly introduced new versions of the software.

What separates sports from entrepreneurism, however, is that in business we constantly have to overcome undefined and unpredictable challenges. Athletes train for specific events and conditions, whereas entrepreneurs generally have little idea what they will encounter along the way.

Governments take too long to get things done and there are far too many varied interests at stake. If you were starting a business today and needed a partner, you would never choose a large bureaucratic institution like the government.

Philanthropy without scale and sustainability is like any other bad business that will simply wither and die on the vine.