Soichiro Honda

What failed

A crash at Japan's first racetrack in June 1936 broke his brother's spine. He raced once more that October, then gave it up. His investors refused to fund a move from repair into manufacturing. A run of technical failures sent him back to school part-time to learn metallurgy, and it was nearly two years before his trials succeeded. When he finally got a contract with Toyota, only three of the fifty piston rings he submitted met the standard, and he spent nearly two more years touring universities and steelworks before he could supply the parts. In 1942 Toyota took forty per cent of his company and he was demoted from president. Then bombing destroyed one plant, and an earthquake collapsed the other.

What happened next

He sold what was left of the company to Toyota and used the money to start again, founding a research institute in September 1946. His first attempt at a motorised bicycle wore the tyres out. The Honda Motor Company was founded in September 1948.

The point

The listicle version has him rejected by Toyota for a job. He was not — he had the contract and could not meet the specification, which is a harder and more ordinary failure. It took roughly five years from starting the company to supplying parts reliably, most of it spent going back to learn what he did not know.