Internet Content Connoisseur
Personal
I change jobs every 3 months
Mar 2nd
As soon as I took on the job of CEO for the world’s weirdest cat site in 2007, the focus hasn’t been about growth — in fact, I’d go as far as saying focusing on growth can have the opposite effect of what’s desired. The focus of my job has been on reinvention.
Let’s take a look at my “career” at the Cheezburger Network:
- Sep. 2007: That idiot who quit his job to run a cat picture site. (Staff count: Approx. 1)
- Jan. 2008: That idiot who quit his job to run some photo sites. (Staff count: Approx. 3)
- Jan. 2009: That idiot who quit his job to run a time-waster network. (Staff count: Approx. 15)
- Jan. 2010: That idiot who quit his job to run a… what the hell are they trying to do over there? (Staff count: Approx. 35)
Every quarter, we embark on a project or come across an opportunity that would fundamentally alter who we are. If you would have told me in 2008 that we’d be running 40+ sites and be one of the largest networks on the Web, I would have not believed you. In fact, I am on the record saying that we could never really see ourselves beyond the 25-sites mark at Gnomedex 2008.
Yet, here we are. WTF?
I believe our ability to grow has to do with two things:
1) Having no false expectations about who we are (we’re here to make you happy for a few minutes, nothing more) and,
2) Having no holy 3-year plan. (Few thought we’d be anything, so it was easy to be something).
That meant we could relentlessly chase what our users wanted each and every month — our own visions be damned. Every year, we look back on the last, and we’ve reinvented ourselves as a different company. Perhaps to the outside world, we haven’t changed much (which I see as a huge positive), after all, we still post the same number of lolcats to I Can Has Cheezburger? each day, but the dramatic internal change is easy to recognize in the office.
That constant drive to reinvent means it starts with me. Every quarter, I look back at the last and my “job” has totally changed. Last quarter, I was hell-bent on finding the Cheezburger way to do recruiting and hiring. This quarter, I want to create a lasting Cheezburger culture within the company. The only thing that’s common from quarter to quarter, from “job” to “job” is that I’ve never done it before. It’s scary as hell. But I really don’t have anything to lose. I can always get a new job.
Learning to Hold Your Tongue
Feb 25th
The ability to distance yourself from a particular situation and think logically is a virtue. Often, as CEO, I run into situations where I feel compelled to “fix” or “correct” a situation. It’s my job to do so within the company. We see the situation as an opportunity for learning and growth and we’ve learned to appreciate the growth value of our mistakes.
However, when it comes to dealing with the public, the same is not true. Unlike a team environment where people want to learn, the public generally doesn’t care about one particular view or another. It’s easy to pass judgment and paint the other side as a moron, pure evil or a greedy bastard. I do it all the time. And the Internet has made it that much easier to polarize each other.
Jumping into the flame war can have serious consequences. Ask anyone and they will tell you that they prefer a factual and reasoned argument over name-calling and absolutism. But a quick read of pretty much any site’s comments will reveal otherwise.
But I don’t buy the “public is stupid” argument that people use an easy way out to paint the users. I’ve learned over the past three years that the public is in fact quite intelligent and reasonable. When you run a user-generated content network, you rely on the smarts of your audience for everything. Quite the contrary to conventional cop-out, the public is actually pretty awesome — with occasional, temporary, lapses.
The broad stroke of painting the users or the public as “stupid” will only color you ignorant. This is a lesson we drill into our team at every opportunity.
If you’re going to start a public-facing company, here’s a few well-earned lessons I learned over the last several weeks:
- Lesson Number 1 is to not argue with the Internet — there’s really no winning.
- Lesson Number 2 is that I am not as clear of a communicator as I wish I was.
- Lesson Number 3 is that disagreements are impossible to avoid, so don’t fret about it.
Haters gonna hate, but learn to love your haters ‘cuz they’re just like you and me.
Bland is the flavor everyone hates the most
Feb 3rd
Almost exactly 10 years ago, I started my first start-up which would lead to a textbook crash and burn. Almost exactly 6-years ago, I was fired from my first real management position. Just as the recession was starting in the fall of 2007, I left a management job with a 6-figure income to run a cat picture site.
I’m blessed enough to have endured some of the most humiliating lessons of my life early on in my career.