Questions
Frequently asked
- What is this?
A short pledge you print, sign by hand, and keep. It grants you permission to fail at something, in writing, in your own handwriting.
It began as an exercise run in classrooms and at tech talks, on note cards. This is the same exercise in a form you can frame.
- Is this a real diploma?
No, and it is not pretending to be one. It is not a qualification, it is not issued by any school, college or university, and it certifies no course of study.
It is designed to look like a diploma because the form is the joke and the point at once: the document says out loud that the authority to permit yourself to fail was always yours. It names The Failure Pledge as its issuer and confers exactly one thing, which is permission.
- Why do I have to print it and sign it by hand?
Because that is the part that works. Clicking a button that says 'I agree' is not the exercise.
Writing your name on a physical object and putting it somewhere you can see it is a deliberate act with a bit of friction in it, and the friction is doing the work. The site deliberately leaves the signature line empty. That line is for a pen.
- Does it cost anything?
The pledge itself is free, and always will be. You can print a complete diploma without paying and without an account.
Additional styles and customisation are paid. What you are paying for is choice, not quality — the free version is not watermarked or cut down.
- What do you do with my name?
By default, nothing at all. Your name is used to render your diploma in your own browser and is not sent anywhere.
If you choose to be listed publicly, only your first name is published, and only the first name is ever sent to the server. Your surname does not leave your browser.
- Can I use this with my class, team, or event?
Yes. That is where it came from. Put it on screen, work through it together, and have everyone print and sign their own.
If you are running it in a room, the handwritten note-card version is still the original and still works.
- Where do the failure stories come from?
Every entry carries its sources, and each event in a person's timeline has its own citation. You can check all of them.
A lot of well-known 'famous failure' anecdotes are false or badly distorted. Einstein did not fail mathematics. Michael Jordan was moved to junior varsity, not cut. Where a popular version is wrong, the entry says so and gives the documented version instead. Anything that could not be sourced was left out.
- Are these people endorsing this?
No. The entries are factual, sourced accounts of documented events. Nobody listed is affiliated with this site or has endorsed it.