The Day After I Quit
This post was written the day after quitting Microsoft to start my own company.
Over the last year I have started to really focus on the difference between the key people in any creative project:
- The people who make it happen
- The people who it wouldn't happen without
Looking back on all the projects I’ve been a part of I’m sure most of the people who made them happen think that they wouldn’t have happened without them.
It’s not true.
If that person wasn’t assigned, someone else would have been. If that person hadn’t stayed up to midnight fixing a problem, another solution would have been found. The project would have turned out differently, but it would still be here.
Thinking back on my own (short) career, most everything would have existed without me. Bing Vision would likely still exist, its form might have changed for the better or worse, but someone else would have had my job. Either way, the project was happening, and my involvement only impacted the quality.
However, there are things I can point to which would not have happened without me. I am most proud of these things. Most of them are small, but even then, they define my work much more than all the times I spent hundreds of hours completing a task that everyone knew needed to be done.
In all these cases no one asked me to investigate a problem and report back (or by definition they might have happened without me). No one asked for a design or plan. In every case I took an idea, and did what was needed to make it happen. Sometimes the idea wasn’t even new or my own, but I was the one who took it from an idea into existence. After that, the quality of the result was in the hands of me and my team.
Now the quality of executions isn’t to be discounted; it’s critical to the success of every project. This is why we teach execution skills in our schools. However, every project has a beginning. A point where it crosses from an idea to something we attempt to build.
I’m quit my job last week because I want to build things and know that they wouldn’t exist without me. Many of these projects will no doubt be failures. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is not trying.
Wish me luck.