What are your failures?
bayareaguy: Many years ago I had the choice between staying with a successful company I helped start where I had little control over the overall technical direction and joing a very risky venture which gave me enormous freedom including the opportunity to immediately hire several friends from college, all of whom were very smart but without much work experience.I choose the latter which turned out to be a big mistake. Not only did I walk away from a small fortune but nothing went right at the new company.  
Even though I did my best to secure everyone good offers, as a whole the team was unable to work together.  Everything fell apart when a key partner we were counting on to raise funding instead used our ideas to help secure a management position at a competitor.In the next company I start, I will be much more careful in who I hire and who I choose as a partner.