Though tech startups rely on origin myths and mantras like 'Fail fast, fail often,' the psychic toll of unrelenting failure simmers just beneath the exuberance

It is probably Silicon Valley's most striking mantra: "Fail fast, fail often." It is recited at technology conferences, pinned to company walls, bandied in conversation.

Failure is not only invoked but celebrated. Entrepreneurs give speeches detailing their misfires. Academics laud the virtue of making mistakes. FailCon, a conference about "embracing failure", launched in San Francisco in 2009 and is now an annual event, with technology hubs in Barcelona, Tokyo, Porto Alegre and elsewhere hosting their own versions.

While the rest of the world recoils at failure, in other words, technology's dynamic innovators enshrine it as a rite of passage en route to success.

But what about those tech entrepreneurs who lose - and keep on losing? What about those who start one company after another, refine pitches, tweak products, pivot strategies, reinvent themselves ... and never succeed? What about the angst masked behind upbeat facades?

Silicon Valley is increasingly asking such questions, even as the tech boom rewards some startups with billion-dollar valuations, sprinkling stardust on founders who talk of changing the world.

"It's frustrating if you're trying and trying and all you read about is how much money Airbnb and Uber are making," said Johnny Chin, 28, who endured three startup flops but is hopeful for his fourth attempt. "The way startups are portrayed, everything seems an overnight success, but that's a disconnect from reality. There can be a psychic toll."

It has never been easier or cheaper to launch a company in the hothouse of ambition, money and software that stretches from San Francisco to Cupertino, Mountain View, Menlo Park and San Jose.

In 2012 the number of seed investment deals in US tech reportedly more than tripled, to 1,700, from three years earlier. Investment bankers are quitting Wall Street for Silicon Valley, lured by hopes of a cooler and more creative way to get rich.

Most startups fail. However many entrepreneurs still overestimate the chances of success - and the cost of failure.

A power plant failure knocked out electricity across a big swath of Venezuela on Friday, darkening the lights at a nationally televised presidential ceremony and forcing a suspension of subway and train services around the country


The outage affected at least 14 of the South American country's 23 states and caused several hours of traffic snarls and darkened homes and offices in the capital, Caracas.

A power plant that supplies electricity to Venezuela's central and western regions failed in early afternoon, Electricity Minister Jesse Chacon said. Electricity was mostly restored in Caracas by nightfall, but remained out in other parts of the country, where power failures are more common.

A Chicago-area minister was arrested Thursday on charges of molesting a boy for six years, beginning when the boy was eight years old.

According to the Chicago Tribune, 57-year-old Rev. John Hays was taken into custody by Chicago police and charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Hays is the director of congregations life of the First Presbyterian Church of River Forest.

Chicago Police Department spokesperson Officer Ana Pacheco said that Hays is accused of molesting the boy from February 2003 to February of 2009, beginning when the boy was eight. Hays' accuser, now 19, filed charges against the minister in May.

The victim was reportedly a friend of Hays' family and a congregant at his church. He told authorities that Hays repeatedly molested him in the minister's residence, which is located down the street from where the boy grew up.

A power plant failure knocked out electricity across a big swath of Venezuela on Friday, darkening the lights at a nationally televised presidential ceremony and forcing a suspension of subway and train services around the country. The outage affected at least 14 of the South American country's 23 states and caused several hours of traffic snarls and darkened homes and offices in the capital, Caracas.

A power outage hit a wide area of eastern Caracas and several cities in the interior of Venezuela for at least two hours Friday.

The outage started at 3:00 pm (07:00 pm GMT) and service began being restored about two hours later.

A Pennsylvania woman claims doctors took her seven-day-old healthy baby and called police and social workers simply because she gave birth at home. She also says that doctors at St. Joseph's Hospital transferred her baby to another hospital without her permission.

"[The doctor] came in the room with a stern look and said if you refuse to transfer her, we WILL CONTACT DHS (Department of Human Services) AND THE POLICE," said the woman, Fatima Doumbouya.

Doumbouya and her husband refused permission, but they didn't realize that the doctors had already decided to move their daughter to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The mother and her husband, Bilal Smith, only learned of the transfer when a nurse told them the baby was being moved. They had never given permission nor signed any paperwork authorizing the action. Doctors informed her that the baby would have to be transferred to Children's because St. Joseph's lacked the proper instruments to examine her.

US sanctions on Russia are putting a huge risk on American businesses and jobs, according to a recent article from Bloomberg. In fact, two top US business-related lobbies are getting ready to break with President Barack Obama over the idea of even more sanctions against Russia after several months of giving their disapproval to the White House.

On Thursday. June 26 the US Chamber of Commerce along with the National Association of Manufacturers are planning on running newspapers ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post - giving a stern warning that even more Russia sanctions risks ruining US workers jobs as well as businesses, claims an anonymous person who knows very well of these plans, cited by Bloomberg.

Leaders from both the US and European Union have made it clear to Russia that it risks a new set of sanctions on its economy sector unless that is it takes the necessary actions to de-escalate the crisis that has been on-going in Ukraine. Yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel informed members of her party that sanctions created to affect Russia's $2 trillion economy have been put on the agenda for a meeting of EU leaders to be held June 26-27.

The defenders and promulgators of data-driven, predictive policing - which is meant to anticipate crimes before they happen - face a PR problem: reassuring the public against fears that such methods are ushering in a totalitarian future reminiscent of the science-fiction film Minority Report.

Concerns about preemptive crime fighting through data hoarding and analysis are hard to assuage, however, because they are perfectly valid.

A lengthy feature published in the Guardian on Wednesday looked at the permeation of data-driven analysis in the LAPD and other municipal police forces. "As the ability to collect, store and analyze data becomes cheaper and easier, law enforcement agencies all over the world are adopting techniques that harness the potential of technology to provide more and better information," it noted. "But while these new tools have been welcomed by law enforcement agencies, they're raising concerns about privacy, surveillance and how much power should be given over to computer algorithms."

The Guardian's report describes an LAPD war room full of video screens. They show incidents of crime in real time; multiple newscasts; the seismic effects of earthquakes; and sections of the city as small as 500 square feet where algorithmic data-crunching indicates that crimes are most likely to take place.

At first glance, such systems seem benignly empirical. Why wait for a robbery or a shooting when algorithms working beyond the capabilities of human intuition can help prevent these incidents in advance? But such an understanding wrongly assumes the neutrality of information. The picture of crime to come is based on pre-existing police data, which we know to be biased and flawed.

A bear kept in captivity in a recreation center in the Rostov Region attacked a five-year-old girl, biting off her hand. The girl is being treated in hospital, while her mother blames the center's owner for not having fed the animal.

On June 24, the girl was helping her mother, who worked at the recreation center in the Rostov Region in southern Russia as a cleaner. The child went up to the bear, which was kept in a cage surrounded by a mesh wire. It had an opening large enough to approach the animal's cage, the regional investigative committee reported.

The mother heard the girl screaming and rushed to help. She literally had to tear off her daughter's hand which was caught in the bear's chops. She then applied a tourniquet and with the help of one of the center's visitors took the child to hospital, she told the LifeNews channel.

The woman believes the bear was hungry. "When full, an animal would never touch a child," she said.

The recreation center owner blames the girl's mother.

The 51-year-old man who died outside a Cleveland courtroom Wednesday told a judge that the 14-year-old girl he victimized had feelings for him.

Miguel Aybar's remark outraged Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Michelle Denise Earley who issued a sharp rebuke in the form of a 60-day jail sentence. Aybar pleaded no contest to unlawful restraint and was found guilty, a court spokesman said

Earley ordered Aybar out of court. He collapsed outside the courtroom and died.

The West Side resident was accused of restraining his teen victim and of "kissing her in the mouth with his tongue," according to a court document.

Courtroom video shows Aybar apologize to his victim and to the girl's mother minutes before his death.

Sylvia Rosalie Schmitt's 18-year-old grandson, Brandon Machetto, was charged Monday with her murder after authorities say he was found driving her body away from her nudist community home in Lutz, Florida.

A silver alert for a missing 74-year-old woman ended in tragedy Monday when her body was allegedly found in the back of her minivan outside her nudist home in Florida.

Sylvia Rosalie Schmitt's 18-year-old grandson, Brandon Machetto, has been charged with her murder after he was found driving her body away from her home in Lutz, Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a press conference.