

Pets.com CEO: The Five Big Mistakes That Changed My Life and How I Moved Past Them - jkopelman
http://www.smartnow.com/page/5991

======
mixmax
How unique and courageous to see someone that has had a very public failure
talk so honestly about it. I wish there were more people with that kind of
guts.

Lots of respect to Julie Wainwright...

~~~
jackchristopher
There's a temptation to resist talking about failure. It's easy to think that
you'll retain your self-image (or tribal status), but that's not usually the
case.

Openness actually _helps_ when you fail publicly. You _gain_ status, so to
speak.

But how do you strike a balance?

It's probably better to err towards openness. But I do find that revealing too
much feels draining.

------
t0pj
_"I had people laugh in my face when I introduced myself for years after the
company closed."_

Julie,

On behalf of everyone here at HN, you are welcome here anytime.

You will have the last laugh, I'm sure.

:)

------
ojbyrne
Frankly I found the narcissism a little off-putting. Lately It seems to be the
main requirement for being a CEO. Among other things:

\- She couldn't check the spelling of "Visacalc"(sic)?

\- Titling every second paragraph with "How I moved on" - just asks to have
the phrase ", leaving wreckage in my wake" after it.

\- "feed my soul"

\- "I rented funny movies" So now you're basically competing with every stay
at home mom for work at home plans.

\- "And I lived in that space for too long" Space? If it was that difficult,
couldn't you have learned to talk like a real person, rather than an executive
drone.

\- "I respond to visual goals, so I did a vision board: I took white poster
board and I pasted pictures and phrases that represented my goals." - so now
you're competing with elementary school students.

\- "I mean, I wasn’t crying every day nor did I drive to the Golden Gate
Bridge and contemplate jumping." - so she actually lives in the Bay Area -
which has massive support systems for failed entrepreneurs and giant egos. Boo
fucking hoo.

Now if she goes on and actually does something great with smartnow.com I'll
eat my words. Till then I'll repeat "Boo fucking hoo."

And I'll pose a question - when pets.com was crashing down around her ears,
how much money did she walk away with? Apparently enough to not work till
several years later, for starters.

~~~
nonrecursive
Why does titling paragraphs "How I moved on" ask to have the phrase "leaving
wreckage in my wake" after it?

>> \- "I rented funny movies" So now you're basically competing with every
stay at home mom for work at home plans.

My partner is chronically ill, which can be pretty depressing. Awhile ago we
realized that the illness is there every day, eroding our ability to be
positive and enjoy life. One of the ways we deal with this is to rent funny
movies. It helps, and we'd be pretty stupid to not do it because we thought we
were being like stay at home moms.

I don't see how this is indicative of narcissism. Also, she's describing what
worked for her - I don't know how you can argue with (or downplay, or whatever
it is you're doing) someone's description of their own experience.

Last - you use the phrase "now she's competing with x". I have no idea why you
think it's a competition in any way. She's describing techniques that worked
for her. It sounds like you wanted her to radiate a smiley face, and convince
it to bite her so she could develop superhuman happy powers.

I just don't understand your attitude. It seems like you're viewing her as a
cutthroat business person trying to fleece women in need of help by providing
them with a free article.

~~~
ojbyrne
Because in general, CEOs are held up to the world as superheroes demanding and
getting astronomical salaries (usually set by compensation committees stocked
with similar pampered upper class twits), and represented in the press by PR
companies who generally extoll how they're better than everyone else. And then
when their company fails and the employees walk away with nada, they not only
get golden parachutes but somehow manage to evoke sympathy while not working
for 5 years, supported by the lost investments of, generally, pensioners.

I didn't mean to insult you or your partner, I'm in fact saying that you're
probably more deserving of sympathy and respect than the person this story is
about.

------
tonystubblebine
Read her bio at the bottom. If that's failure, sign me up!

~~~
pchristensen
Funny that with all that (decades of success and one public fiasco), she still
wasn't happy. That's a great lesson that all the success in the world made her
overweight and with a crumbling marriage, but a humiliating public crash
caused her to find herself and joy in life. I wish her the best, and it sounds
like she's going to get it.

------
ars
From wikipedia:

[after the company shut down], CEO Julie Wainwright received $235,000 in
severance on top of a $225,000 "retention payment" while overseeing the
closure.

At least she felt bad about what happened.

~~~
fallentimes
There's no way ~$450,000 is worth going through what she did.

~~~
astine
Money can't buy happiness, but it helps. (It certainly gives you the freedom
to pursue happiness and do so comfortably.) I suppose that by the time you
reach that level of seniority, it ceases being your primary concern, or even a
real source of comfort.

~~~
azharcs
Like Stephen Colbert says - Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you
stuff which makes you happy. ;)

------
Fuca
It is amazing how the crowd thinks in waves good or bad, everybody kills for
an ipod, everybody hates or loves the same things, we belive more in general
opinion than in our own opinions.

~~~
azharcs
Its called "Wisdom of the Crowds".

~~~
brianr
Going with the flow could hardly be called "wisdom".

------
aswanson
_Pets.com pulled its Sock out of the pack, created an enduring brand and
achieved over revenue of $46M in just nine months in 2000._

Amazing.

~~~
nostrademons
It's pretty easy to make $46M by spending $110M, which is what Pets.com did.

The rest of Julie's career is pretty impressive - I remember playing with You
Don't Know Jack in high school and finding it pretty entertaining. But
Pets.com was basically an ill-conceived disaster.

------
Eliezer
"Mystics might say I am entering a new seven-year cycle. I kind of think
that's true because I believe there are universal laws and truths. I do know I
have been on a journey."

Well, she hasn't learned any lessons about trying to get away with sloppy
thinking whenever she thinks she won't get called on it.

~~~
mechanical_fish
You don't _think_ your way out of crushing depression. It's not about logic.

~~~
stcredzero
You can think your way deeper into one, though.

