When I left Google I didn't have any plans in particular apart from taking a "funemployment" break and finding the right next move. At first I wondered how I was going to go about it.
Ever the good corporate citizen, I figured I'd start off with meetings. I met a lot of people in a lot of coffee shops. There were some who got in contact with me when they heard I'd left Google. There were other people from previous lives and previous companies with whom I was long overdue in catching up. Still other interesting people I managed to hunt down through ruthless LinkedIn-ing.
I had a great time hanging out with people and talking about the business of technology. I signed some NDAs and learned some amazing things. It's actually incredibly exciting how much is going on out there.
After doing a lot of talking and a lot of thinking I made the breakthrough realization that in fact I wasn't looking for a specific role so much as I was looking for a specific environment:
- a tech company;
- a transformative product;
- a kick-ass team;
- a strong top-down vision; and
- ideally in San Francisco.
From the beginning, Twitter stood out as seriously impressive. Everyone I met there was smart, super-interesting, switched on, and welcoming. I'm a keen user and fan of the product. What's more one of the co-founders mentioned while interviewing me that he wants Twitter to be not just in San Francisco but a part of San Francisco. I love this city and thought that that sentiment was especially cool.
Most of all, though, and as I said on Twitter itself, how could I resist such charming stationery?
I'll start next month as a Product Manager and I'm pretty excited. Between now and then I've got a few weeks of funemployment left and lots of thinking to do so I can hit the ground running in my new job. If you've got thoughts or ideas about Twitter, send 'em over.
6 comments:
Hawesome news Isaac. Interested to hear more as you get into the company and help them figure out how to make cash without screwing up the experience.
One feature I love on my android twitter client (twidroid) is that you can thread tweets into a conversation view. It's nice, but afaik you can't do it via the native twitter ui (ie on twitter.com). It does seem to batter the twitter servers though - used more than a couple of times in an hour is often enough to get a chiding "stop beating up on the twitter api" message.
I should add I meant the user experience. Not your experience of being at Twitter. ;)
congrats on the new opportunity.
Contratulations on the new gig!
Congratulations Isaac.
It's amazing what a difference a beautifully presented offer letter can make. No matter how good the offer itself, I think that this kind of attention to detail and suggestion of how much the company invests in its people goes a very long way.
Have fun!
Phil
Congrats, Isaac! I hope you enjoy it there... although I might have been tempted to spend some more quality funemployment time if I were you.
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