I'm impressed with the premise of these articles and want to see more of them -- removing the glitz and glamour added by the media to entrepreneurial stories is an important service.
I must have been out of the loop -- I never knew that Tom Preston-Werner founded Gravatar[1] or that he worked at Powerset.
He mentioned in his blog post[2], as he was labelled a "flight risk", he was offered quite a sum of money to stay at Powerset/Microsoft.
Money is quite sticky and to pull away from it requires both guts and determination.
Even though I'm early in my career I've already come across the "flight risk" pot of gold and avoided it -- though as opposed to Tom I don't yet know if I made the right decision or not ;)
> though as opposed to Tom I don't yet know if I made the
> right decision or not ;)
The interesting thing is -- it was probably the wrong call, and I'm saying this without having the faintest idea who you are or what you do. An abundance of news on IPOs, start-up millionaires, and other "over night" success stories has the unfortunate effect of grossly distorting our perception of the actual success/failure distribution.
NB, this doesn't mean one shouldn't try. But you know what I'd be interested in? A series on utter failures. People leaving safe jobs for a half-baked idea that simply doesn't take off. Companies folding after a couple of months without much publicity. Desperate hunts for "acquihires" that go nowhere.
I agree, the survivor bias in the startup world is intense. We're always focusing on the success stories and replicating what they did. But, like you say, for every "toiled away and finally made it" story, there are probably 5? 10? 100? "toiled away and still got nowhere" stories.
As someone who has written a little about trying and failing[1][2], I'll say that the community doesn't exactly embrace such stories. Instead, everyone piles on to armchair quarterback and tell you what you did wrong.
But, to anyone who is serious about succeeding, you need to listen and learn from both the successes and the failures. Otherwise, you're operating on far less than half the story.
Context is everything, mate, so I strongly disagree about who you are not being a factor. Decisions are driven by many factors and none of mine relied on "overnight success" for example.
Control of your working hours was something I wasn't willing to trade, not even for a large sum of money. I'm still happy with my decision -- but I'm well aware of the fact that if the company I refused goes on to become enormous I will be kicking myself =]
Comments
I'm impressed with the premise of these articles and want to see more of them -- removing the glitz and glamour added by the media to entrepreneurial stories is an important service.
I must have been out of the loop -- I never knew that Tom Preston-Werner founded Gravatar[1] or that he worked at Powerset.
He mentioned in his blog post[2], as he was labelled a "flight risk", he was offered quite a sum of money to stay at Powerset/Microsoft. Money is quite sticky and to pull away from it requires both guts and determination. Even though I'm early in my career I've already come across the "flight risk" pot of gold and avoided it -- though as opposed to Tom I don't yet know if I made the right decision or not ;)
[1]: http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/27/looking-back-on-sel...
[2]: http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-down-3...
NB, this doesn't mean one shouldn't try. But you know what I'd be interested in? A series on utter failures. People leaving safe jobs for a half-baked idea that simply doesn't take off. Companies folding after a couple of months without much publicity. Desperate hunts for "acquihires" that go nowhere.
I agree, the survivor bias in the startup world is intense. We're always focusing on the success stories and replicating what they did. But, like you say, for every "toiled away and finally made it" story, there are probably 5? 10? 100? "toiled away and still got nowhere" stories.
As someone who has written a little about trying and failing[1][2], I'll say that the community doesn't exactly embrace such stories. Instead, everyone piles on to armchair quarterback and tell you what you did wrong.
But, to anyone who is serious about succeeding, you need to listen and learn from both the successes and the failures. Otherwise, you're operating on far less than half the story.
[1] http://blog.aisleten.com/2009/04/06/what-we-did-to-not-get-i...
[2] http://peachshake.com/2011/07/20/entrepreneurship-stumbling-... (go about 10 minutes in to hear about failure)
Context is everything, mate, so I strongly disagree about who you are not being a factor. Decisions are driven by many factors and none of mine relied on "overnight success" for example.
Control of your working hours was something I wasn't willing to trade, not even for a large sum of money. I'm still happy with my decision -- but I'm well aware of the fact that if the company I refused goes on to become enormous I will be kicking myself =]