Of course, I have no idea what this girl’s story is, or why she looks like she might cry in the middle of this class right now. But I feel for that isolation.

“Um...today I learned that twin sheets do not fit on a twin extra-long mattresses.” She forces a smile and sits down as a few people laugh, including, thankfully, Professor Thomas, who musters a chuckle.

I decide I like this strategy, to say something that isn’t a thinly veiled résumé check. When it gets around to me I say, “Hi, my name is Roberto, but most people call me Robbie. I am a freshman and will either major in computer science or electrical engineering. I haven’t decided yet. And my fun fact is when the last Harry Potter book came out, I stayed up all night and read it in two days.”

I sit back down. I guess that still was kind of a humble brag, depending on how you look at it. But it’s from elementary school so I think it’s okay.

When the introductions are over, Professor Thomas moves his coffee cup before sitting on the desk at the front of the room, a causal gesture at odds with the fiercely competitive atmosphere in the auditorium.

“People often ask me what makes an entrepreneur,” he begins. “What sets aside the man who has the type of success where he enters an industry, climbs to the mid or upper-mid level and retires fine, with the kind of mind that alters an industry completely, leaving a mark for decades after he’s gone? The kind of mind that takes an idea born in a garage and turns it into the kind of thing my colleagues and I trip over each other to invest in?”

At the HP Garage reference, half the room scoots farther up in their seats. It’s Silicon Valley, after all.

“The answer is failure.” He pauses dramatically. “Sure, all successful people experience setbacks. They are passed over for a promotion or don’t get a job. But some successful businessmen can make it through good careers without experiencing terrible failure. Catastrophic failure—down in the gutter, debt piling up, not sure if you can keep the lights on another week failure—that is where an entrepreneur lives. If you are innovating, you are coming up with an idea that either people have tried and failed to succeed with before you, or is so ridiculous that no human has even thought of it before. You will be laughed out of rooms. You will spend hours, if not months, building prototypes that fall apart.