how to make money and influence people
May 16, 2008 - 9:17 AM
It has been almost a year since I moved out to Silicon Valley to become a programmer at Digg. Before I left I continually worried if I was making the right decision. I was moving away from my family, my friends, the cost of living in S.F. is so much larger than in Michigan that I would essentially be taking a pay cut to come here.
I wasn't happy with the company I worked for. The job I was doing was OK and the people I worked directly with I really liked but it was a company of 450+ people where I was just another cog in the machine. The company itself was a family owned publishing/media company for B2B, they had been around for many generations and had never considered doing business on the web till around 2002. So most of the staff outside the "internet" department had no idea what the internet was or how it worked or even how to make money with it.
That in and of itself isn't a problem. The real problem was that they were unwilling to admit they didn't know what they were doing and it was next to impossible to get them to listen to any of the suggestions that came out of our group.
So after 3 years I was so frustrated with the "politics", and believe me there was a lot of it, I decided to look for a job somewhere else and the opportunity to work for a company like Digg was too good to pass up.
So I packed up my entire car, left Michigan, and drove across country in 4 days. I haven't looked back since. Regardless to say that working at Digg is pretty much the best job I ever could have. The people are all smart, fun to be around, motivated, and hard working. I still keep in touch with a few friends from Michigan and even a few from my old company.
In talking with my friends from my former, undisclosed, employer I am more convinced than ever that I made the right choice. When I left the company, shortly after, a number of other people from the Internet group left as well, as much as 30% of the staff. The only response from the CEO's was to hire faster. Not once did they ask, "Why are so many people leaving?".
With the current downturn in specific sectors of the economy, like the construction industry, their profitability it taking a hit. Now they are still profitable, they are still making money, but just not as much. So what do they do to help fix this. Send out an email that starts with the following lines:
”Tardiness costs U.S. businesses more than $3 billion each year in lost productivity. The effect on the bottom line of the average business is significant: An employee who is late 10 minutes each day has, by the end of the year, taken the equivalent of a week’s paid vacation.”
When I read stuff like this and hear about it from my friends, I know I absolutely made the right choice. Working at a company like Digg, for people like Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, people who "get it". Not just the internet, but how to motivate people to work hard and foster creativity. Allowing me to do things I never thought I could do before. I consider myself a very lucky person.
