
Steve's story - Google employee #13 - paul
http://googler13.blogspot.com/2011/01/steves-story-googler-13.html
======
dools
This is a story of a true hustler - and I mean that in a good way.

This guy got out there and hustled for a job. He hustled his way into Netscape
by persistently calling and eventually "hacking" his way into contact with a
well connected business person.

Then when he was employed at Google, he went out there and hustled dollars
that made them actually get some turnover.

It's a story we don't hear very often. It's a story about the people that make
the _money_ rather than the people that make the _technology_.

In a world where so much of the technology sector seems to be predicated on
the idea that you build something cool, get users and sort the "money stuff"
out later, it's easy to forget that, at some point, someone's gotta get out
there and actually make some god damned money.

Having attempted to sell various technological services of my own for the past
4 years, I can whole-heartedly say that in my experience, building the
technology is the easy part.

Being able to monetise it is a magical gift!

I'd also like to add that I find it pretty far fetched to refer to this
success as "luck". Being a good salesman, being a good hustler, is all about
_being there_. That's why CRM systems are such a vital sales tool - you need
to make sure that every few months you call your prospects, and if you don't
sell to them then you make an appointment to call back in 3 months and so on.

Whether you're selling vacuum cleaners or selling your own services as an
employee or contractor, you can't refer to every successful sales as "luck" -
it's success based on persistent action. If anything you'd have to refer to
people who hustle well and _don't_ succeed as being unlucky, rather than the
other way around.

~~~
yardie
Good salespeople are awesome and I am in awe at their ability to do things
that most hackers don't realize. Remembering names, building relationships,
and convincing people to give them money.

It's very easy to disparage what they do because from the outside it seems
trivial. But I attended a sales meeting once and I'm never taking these guys
for granted ever again.

To put it another way, their entire salary is based around selling your work.
As a programmer that pulls a normal salary, that means they have more
confidence in what you do than you.

Also, company hierarchy almost always dictates that the further you are from
the money the more precarious your role is. You could lay off all the
engineers tomorrow and the company would limp along for 1-2 years. You lay off
all of the sales staff and that company is dead in months.

------
nostrademons
I like this because it resonates with Paul Buchheit's earlier blogpost about
not letting ego fear rule your life:

[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-
finds-y...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-finds-
you.html)

Yes, this guy got superbly lucky. He also put himself into a position where it
was possible to get superbly lucky, and then capitalized on that luck as well
as possible.

~~~
noahc
I spent the last 2 or 3 years, wondering what made people successful.

I've since read about all the popele who I find successful. Here's the
conclusion I've come to.

1\. They ship things.

2\. They work on something everyday.

If you do those two things you will be successful.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
I shipped things and worked on something every day from age 22 to 35 and was
not successful. Silicon Valley is filled with people and the ghosts of people
just like me.

~~~
keeptrying
Hey there.

I'm sorry to hear that but I think you might have a lot of insights that would
help us up and coming entrepreneurs if your willing to share.

Something else is your actual calling. Maybe its helping entrepreneurs?

PS: I'm not trying to sound trite. I mean this sincerely.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
I'm not sure there's as much to learn from failure as various self-help
business books would suggest. When you remove the specifics all startup advice
is trite at best and dangerous at worst.

~~~
keeptrying
Well what would you say that an entrepreneur needs to keep in mind regardless
of what the self-help books say?

------
yread
_Over a two-week period, I left messages on every single voice mailbox I could
get at that company. I was never able to get a human on the phone or get a
call back_

I thought this would be about Google

------
aothman
Sounds like he was in the right place at the right time. I think it would be a
mistake to read anything into his story other than "be really lucky".

EDIT: There were lots of people just like him that weren't crazy-successful.
It's wonderful that he put himself into a place where he could succeed, but
that's only necessary, not sufficient, to realize that success. He deserves
credit for buying the ticket and taking the ride, but beyond that it's luck.

~~~
paul
We were all in the right place at the right time. There is something to be
said for making an effort to put yourself in the "right" place though.

~~~
nostrademons
Where do you think the "right" place is right now?

The problem I always have is that the right place isn't really apparent until
years after the decision about where to be is made. At the time, there're many
places that look appealing, and little reason to choose one over the other.
And then it's only with hindsight that one of those becomes a big success and
the rest become has-beens.

I was thinking about this today when responding to a Reddit post whining about
how there're no good high-paying jobs left in this country:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/eyu1o/the_unemploym...](http://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/eyu1o/the_unemployment_rate_is_it_right_or_wrong/c1c170c)

Of course that's false. However, when I think about how I got my good high-
paying job, the answer that comes to mind is "pure dumb luck". I happened to
like computers when I was a teen in the 90s, and I happened to stick with it
through the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, and so now that these CS jobs are
paying six figures easily, I've got close to ten years experience in skills
that are very hot. But I wasn't really thinking about professions or salary at
the time; I was thinking "Hey, this seems sorta interesting, I wonder what
else I can find out..."

~~~
paul
YC. Of course I'm biased, but on the other hand I'm betting on it :)

Even companies that don't make it often lead their founders to other great
opportunities (e.g. at other yc companies). I also believe there's something
surprisingly powerful about witnessing success first hand.

------
elvirs
I google his name and there is not much about him after he left google. He
says 'I am now looking to share some of my knowledge and experience to benefit
the next wave of those who aspire to do as I did' I am just curious what has
he done to benefit the next wave?

~~~
danielh
Well, he just wrote an inspiring blog post.

And he started the Warrior Heart Foundation to "inspire and empower people to
live their dreams". Unfortunately, I can't find much about it except some
videos of their participation in the Gumball rally.

~~~
elvirs
yeah they are racing on a Porsche Carrera GT, nice car :) do you think this
post is newly written and that blog is really his?

~~~
danielh
I have no proof that it is his blog, but I have also no reason to believe it
isn't. And yes, it's a nice car!

~~~
hugh3
If I ever start a charitable foundation, I want it to be the kind of
charitable foundation that allows the founder to race supercars and doesn't
seem to have any other activities. That's my kind of charity.

------
redthrowaway
I wonder how different his story would be if he was still at Google today. I
understand that there was a pretty magical feeling at Google in its pre- and
immediately post-IPO days, and I'd be interested to hear from someone who
lived through that and is still at Google now.

~~~
nostrademons
My VP is one of those double-digit-employee-ID people, and he recently said
"People ask me what it was like to work at Google in the early days. This [the
making of Google Instant] was what it was like to work at Google back then."

So in at least some parts, that spirit still exists at Google. The problem is
that it's much harder to find well-defined problems that are ambitious and yet
feasible.

~~~
redthrowaway
You know, as awesome as Google Instant is in principle, I never find myself
using it. The chrome omnibox is just too useful, although I get that's pretty
much Instant anyway.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm the same way...I often find Instant actively distracting as a user,
particularly since usually the only time it triggers for me is when I'm
editing some numbers on a Calculator search. (For everything else, there's the
Omnibox.)

But I'm not a typical user. Chrome's market share is what? 7-10%? That means
that 90-93% of Internet users don't even _have_ an Omnibox.

Anyway, I think his point isn't necessarily that Instant is awesome (though
I'd imagine he'd think it is), it's that the _making_ of Instant was awesome,
and included the same sort of focused teamwork in pursuit of a seemingly
impossible goal that early Google had.

[Side note: from everything I've heard, Chrome itself is one of those
awesomely-managed projects that contains a large team of people working
towards an ambitious goal. Much like early Google.]

~~~
redthrowaway
RE: Side note: That's the impression I get. Given Chrome's release schedule
and the pace at which they're improving it, it really seems like a balls-out
effort by a fairly large group of driven engineers. I bet it'd be fun to work
on.

------
aditya
I wonder if this could've happened outside the Bay Area though. This is part
of the reason the area works so well as a hub, because it really does maximize
serendipity of the life-changing kind, since almost everyone in the area has
been in a similar situation before.

~~~
nedwin
Forget about the Google element. Forget about the technology element. It's an
example of someone who was relentlessly resourceful.

If he wasn't in the Bay Area he would have found an incredible opportunity
somewhere else, always throwing himself into the path of oncoming
opportunities.

------
blr_hack
Loved the story, as of course, so many of you did.

At the risk of being sounding judgmental on other people, I will still say,
that his now leading a retired(ish) life doesn't jell well with the story of a
person, who can do such heroics (like putting a job needed board, on his chest
and standing the whole day).

Again, apologize for being preachy, life is a journey, and stagnating at any
point, doesn't help...I am about as old as him...have had my share of moderate
successes in life... looking for more...some of the best code I've written in
my life has been in the past couple of years...look to write lots more ...:)

~~~
blr_hack
May I know the reason, why my above comment was down voted?

Its quite insulting to be done so, after having written the comment, with the
best of intentions.

PS: If I don't get a satisfactory answer. Will quit HN. It may not matter to
you of course.

~~~
johnyzee
When he said, quote-unquote, "retired" he most likely just meant that he is no
longer forced to work for his substinance. He is still out there, he is just
free to pursue exactly what he wants.

~~~
blr_hack
I agree. Actually, at my age (approaching middle age), that 'retirement' word,
doesn't sound right ... it may mean either 'resigned', 'lazy', 'tired' and
other negatives... and success can indeed make you 'lazy' and 'fat'... so may
be I read more into it. Personally, don't like that 'retirement' word. At-
least not till I am actually forced to do :)

So my role models are people like Vishy Anand, who at 41, is still the world
chess champion (I believe, hacking is also as energy-needing as playing
chess)...

------
shawnee_
_Imagine a place where early-stage technology companies can get inexpensive
development capital from the pooled investment dollars of individuals who
trade their stock directly over the Internet._

(from the document TechnoEquity)

------
Roritharr
When looking at these stories i always wonder if my computer science bachelor
degree will really help me when i get in 2 years...

My time spent learning algorithms and mathemathics that bore me with lack of
practicality could be spent working on my own projects...

What do you think, is a degree in CS important for someone who is able to
employ himself and (soon) others?

~~~
dangrossman
Get your degree and work on your own projects. College is perfect for that
since it's a few years where you have student loans as a financial buffer and
nobody's pestering you about not having a job.

~~~
alain94040
Exactly. Get the degree _and_ work on your own projects. This is how I
described my experience recruiting at a college job fair:

"One student showed me her resume: it showed perfect GPA, lots of classes with
impressive-sounding titles. But no summer job, no internship, no side project.

Another student showed me a less than perfect resume, but it had all kinds of
extra-curricular projects and activities, showing exposure to technologies,
people and business challenges." (from
[http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/05/13/being-a-new-cs-
grad-...](http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/05/13/being-a-new-cs-grad-in-this-
economy-sucks/))

------
BrainScraps
It brings me hope that a non-coder can make a dent in the tech world. Job
listings in the past few months have been a bit discouraging for business dev
& marketing types.

------
dstein
Would this story be interesting if he hadn't worked at Google? The only thing
unique about this story is that he hit the IPO jackpot.

------
Gupie
"I left shortly after IPO to pursue other interests."

:)

------
ashbrahma
What does he do now?

------
lken
this guy sounds like a barnacle. good for him though.

------
azrealus
awesome and inspiring story. thank you for sharing.

------
pcampbell
miracles favor the bold.

------
tedjdziuba
Cool story, bro.

------
chopsueyar
How much did he cash out for?

