In 2006 I fumbled an initial job offer from Facebook. It was nearly the biggest mistake of my career. Here's what happened:
I was working on the Kindle team at Amazon in Fall '05 when my friend and mentor Owen van Natta first tried to recruit me to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg had recently promoted him from VP of Business Development to COO. The BD role was open and Owen encouraged me to interview for it
I was living in West Seattle with my wife and 3 young kids. Amazon was rising from the ashes of the dotcom bust and I was working with Jeff Bezos on a secret project. Facebook was barely a year old and Zuck had just reached legal drinking age. I told Owen I couldn't leave Amazon.
But an idea started gnawing at me. When I joined Amzn in '99 most people weren't putting their credit cards online until Bezos gave them a reason & made it safe. In '06 most people still used aliases online - was Zuck giving people a reason to post their identity on the internet?
I was facing a crucial moment. I had a good job, my Amzn stock options were finally above water for a down payment on a house, my kids loved their school and friends, my wife was happy in Seattle. How could I leave all this for a risky start-up in an expensive new city?
My mind traveled back to a few years earlier. I was working a shift in a half-finished fulfillment center packing boxes during one of Amazon's near-death holidays. I was depressed. Then I spotted Bezos a few stations away, he looked happy. I thought "someday I'll do a start-up"
If I didn't do a start-up now, when would I? It was time. I told Owen I was ready and he thrust me into a day of interviews at FB's office on High St in Palo Alto. It was buzzing with youthful energy and managed chaos. They had 100 employees serving 5M users and needed help.
My final interview was with Zuck. I sat down in his office and he greeted me…with silence. His face was stone cold, eyes unblinking, he didn't say a word. We stared at each other awkwardly for a minute (felt like an eternity), and then he abruptly stood up and left the room.
He came back after a few minutes and said "sorry, I don't have much practice interviewing business people. I just called Owen and he explained what we're talking to you about." I was startled but impressed he had the self-confidence to be so honest and admit his inexperience.
Zuck's first question to me was "what do you want to work on at Facebook." I was interviewing for Biz Dev, I was supposed to dazzle him with my knowledge of partnerships, content, deals. Instead, I decided to be honest myself: "I want to help you figure out how to make money."
He seemed intrigued by my response. Word on the street was Mark didn't care about making money, but I got the sense that wasn't true. I suggested he could build an ad auction similar to Google's, based on people instead of search terms. He said he had been thinking the same thing
Later that day Owen told me they were going to make me an offer. I was practically hovering off the ground with excitement. I called a VC friend who explained the mechanics of start-up stock options and gave me some equity benchmarks for VP-level roles at 100 person companies.
Then…Owen called to say FB would not make me a VP because I was not yet VP at Amazon. And he offered me an equity package that was 10% of the benchmark target suggested by my VC friend. He said everyone loved meeting me and thought I was great, but I needed to prove myself.
I pushed back and negotiated like a business developer. They had invited me to interview for this job, I was happy at Amazon and wasn't looking to leave! I thought I deserved more. I thought I had leverage. After some back and forth, they decided to give the job to someone else.
Years later Sheryl Sandberg told me when she got a job offer from Google, Eric Schmidt said "When you see a rocket ship, don't overthink it. Just get on board." I wish Eric had told *me* that! I couldn't sleep for a week. My dreams had been smashed. I had overplayed my hand.
Then I woke up one morning and realized what I had to do. It was 2006 and Facebook was not the only exciting start-up in Silicon Valley. It was their loss that it didn't work out, not mine. I would join another company and show the team at FB they had made a mistake.
Impressed by my resilience (and feeling bad as my friend), Owen introduced me to an executive recruiter in Silicon Valley. I was living in Seattle and started secretly traveling to SF every other weekend to meet with founders. It was grueling and stressful, but I was invigorated.
I interviewed with Second Life, StubHub, Rapleaf. I met Peter Thiel and Bill Gurley, interviewed with Reid Hoffman at LinkedIn and Max Levchin at Slide. Silicon Valley was a petri dish of innovation and I was soaking it in. I'm still friends with many of the people I met.
When Max Levchin asked me for references, I gave him Owen's number. Slide was building on top of MySpace at the time and Max wanted to do more with FB so he was excited to meet Owen. They apparently had a good chat. And then something amazing happened.
Owen called me the next day and said they had made a mistake. He wanted me to reconsider joining FB - still as Director of BD, but at double the equity package they had offered me the first time. I accepted his offer on the spot.
My wife and I sold our house in Seattle and used the proceeds to cover our rent in Palo Alto. We lowered our burn to live on a start-up salary. We had no safety net - if FB didn't work out we planned to move in with our parents. Luckily it worked out.
A month after I joined FB I negotiated a deal with Microsoft which doubled our revenue. Six months later I was promoted to VP of Biz Dev (and more equity). A year later Mark and Sheryl asked me to help build FB's ad auction and promoted me to VP of Partnerships & Monetization.
If you believe in yourself, don't be afraid to prove it to others. Be honest about your ambition, it will help you self-select into the right situation. If you can't stop thinking about something, trust your intuition. And when you see a rocket ship, get on board!
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