On-Demand Webinar · 59 min

A Chat with Randy Bean on His Book, Fail Fast, Learn Faster

Randy Bean, founder and CEO of NewVantage Partners, joins Chris Bergh to talk about Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI. Why he wrote it, how leadership teams drive human change, what a culture of rapid experimentation takes, and the transformation stories behind it. Recorded July 2021; updated August 2026.

Presented by Chris Bergh

What you'll learn 6 points
  • Randy Bean wrote Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI, published August 31, 2021, with a foreword by Thomas H. Davenport.
  • The book is written for three audiences at once: CEOs, corporate boards and business decision makers; industry practitioners and students; and general readers trying to understand why data matters.
  • The title argues for iteration over certainty, drawing on Beckett's 'Fail again. Fail better', Paul Saffo's 'Failure is the foundation of innovation', and Facebook's 'Move fast and break things'.
  • Bean's vantage point is advisory rather than academic: a front-row seat to the data revolution as an advisor to Fortune 1000 clients, and years of writing for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and MIT.
  • The ten chapters run from a history of big data through becoming data-driven, establishing a data culture, the rise of the chief data officer, data ethics, and data-driven AI, closing on the data journey.
  • The method is narrative: central themes carried by real-world stories, illustrative examples, and case studies from named brands rather than abstract frameworks.

Slides

9 slides

Questions from this session

What is Fail Fast, Learn Faster about?

It is a book about data-driven leadership in an age of disruption, big data, and AI, built from real-world corporate stories rather than frameworks. Its chapters cover the history of big data, becoming data-driven, data culture, the rise of the chief data officer, data ethics, disruption and innovation, and data-driven AI.

Who should read it?

Bean names three audiences: CEOs, senior executives, corporate boards and business decision makers; industry professionals, practitioners and students who will learn from others' experience; and general readers who want to understand why data matters at all.

Where does the title come from?

From the idea that learning comes from experience and iteration — trial and error, test and learn, short cycle time. Bean cites Beckett's 'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better', Paul Saffo's 'Failure is the foundation of innovation', and Facebook's 'Move fast and break things'.

Why publish it when he did?

Bean points to urgency. The global effort to organize scientific and epidemiological data to find a COVID-19 vaccine showed both how existential the quest to become data-driven had become and how much having good data matters.

Who is Randy Bean?

A long-time advisor to Fortune 1000 companies on data strategy and a regular writer on the subject for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and MIT. Allison Sagraves describes him as the pre-eminent writer on the modern data revolution.

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