Microsoft Is A Slow Coach, BUT …
No doubt, Microsoft has become a slow coach. They can neither hire talent, nor retain talent. But.
Look at Nial Kennedy’s resume. He doesn’t stick around anywhere for very long. Certainly not long enough to make an impact. Now, he wants to start a company of his own … well, if you were a VC, would you fund someone with a track-record of getting frustrated within so short a time?
As all those who aspire to become entrepreneurs one day will learn in due course, entrepreneurship requires tremendous patience, enormous nerve, and it entails frustration, ups and downs, resilience, maneuvering, … most importantly, time.
I have thought many times about starting another company, kicked around ideas with VCs, etc. Every deal has its set of requirements. Some need more capital than others, and if you try to do deals that need a lot of capital, with little capital, your shirt gets torn off your sweaty body! Others can be done with little capital, but at the cost of extreme personal stress and sacrifice. I have weighed these factors against those particular deals, and decided not to pull the trigger, because I wasn’t convinced that I wanted to sign off the next 5 years of my life, given the parameters around it.
No matter what, the one currency you cannot afford to launch yourself into entrepreneurship without is time and patience.
Thus, I for one am frowning upon Nial’s decision (a) to join Microsoft (b) to quit Microsoft (c) to start a company.
Corollary: Never join any company where you cannot stay at least 2 years. And never start a company unless you are ready for a relatively long haul. Someone should have advised Niall on career management.
Fair point. One really shouldn’t start a business without a reasonable commitment of time, capital and personal commitment. Interestingly, for most businesses,once they mange to survive for around 2 - 3 years, their survival rate is not very different from that of big established companies.
Wonderful observation.
Yet, I will not frown at Nial’s decision till he spells out the idea behind the business he is launching. With so much Built-to-Flip in the air, there might be something right for his attention span.
Maybe he must play Cricket instead of Soccer
I agree - nicely said!
That is a very good post and career advice and one that every entrepreneur needs to take to heart.
It is pointless to speculate why he really quit. Looking at the resume it becomes obvious that the guy is more of a ‘contractor’ than anything else. He comes into the company does what he was hired to do and leaves. There is a difference between wanting to work on a single project and wanting to make a carreer out of it.
Frustration is a relatively meaningless term. What was he frustrated with? Was it the management/corporate culture of Microsoft? There were several reports published describing the internal structure of Microsoft. There are close to ten people that a single decision has go through before it is approved. This man is clearly more comfortable working in a less formal structure.
Should he have taken a job at MS knowing the above? Maybe. It is possible that he wanted a chance to work on some interesting stuff at MS. It is possible that he thought he could survive the corporate BS. I guess he was wrong. Bottom line is, he took a chance. It didn’t work out. That is all there is to it.
What is the point of working at a place you dont like? If you’re doing work you dont like, not only do you suffer but so does the quality of your work. At the same time, the company you’re working for is not getting the results they want. What is the point of hurting everyone? It is better to quit and find work that you actually enjoy.
Never taking a chance on anything is not such a great idea. The loss if that of the person not trying anything. If you never try anything you will never find out if it was a good idea. You can speculate till you go blue in the face if it something is a good idea. Without a concrete implementation ideas are equvalent to “Should I have coffee with sugar or without sugar?”; pointless.
So, that is what i think.