Since at least the 1980s (the era of deregulation, that is, over which Alfred Kahn presided) managers of big companies have been upbraided for their intolerance to risk. Certainly, that’s a fair accusation. As Dick Morley — an MIT manufacturing innovator with deep experience in the auto industry — put it to us, “the trouble with big companies is that they take nice high-risk, high-return opportunities, then manage the risk out of them to the point that there’s no return left.” Knowing that mature firms must become more venturesome to continue growing, business gurus routinely advise them to embrace failure. Risk-taking, they say, must be rewarded, even when it does not succeed.