Kareem — a big company’s nightmare

Surfing through my feed reader this morning, I came across a post from Kareem Mayan about why he left a job at Fox Interactive Media (the News Corp. unit that controls MySpace). The bottom line — at least from my reading of his post — is that while he got to do some interesting things at the company, he just didn’t feel challenged or motivated.

Kareem, who I met at last year’s mesh conference and is originally from Toronto, is a smart young guy who I’m sure lots of companies would jump at hiring. But he left to run a small startup that is working on something in the field of education. Why? Here’s what he says:

“After too many days of being miserable, I realized it was because I wasn’t happy with my job. I was earning a lot of money, had just gotten a promotion, lived in a beautiful apartment near the beach with my rad girlfriend, but none of it was floating my boat.”

If you’re a big company like FIM or News Corp., you need people like Kareem — but you are destined to lose them because doing something challenging and meaningful means more than having a big job with a fancy title and a nice raise or a corner office.

Just one thing, Kareem: Can I have your beautiful apartment near the beach? :-)

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Tagged as: fox, job, kareem

tony conrad

I met Kareem @ ESPN and then again during his days at FIM. Truly an excellent guy and it's great to see him jump into entrepreneurship. We spoke at length a month ago over coffee at my house. I think he'll do well because he's not making this change for financial gain, instead, he's trying to solve an interesting problem in a space that's aligned with his interests. Matt Mullenweg (Automattic), Ethan Diamond + Iain Lamb (Oddpost) and Toni Schneider (Automattic + Sphere + Oddpost) are other guys that focused on an interesting problem more so than the get rich quick incentives driving so many start-ups. Guys like Kareem are going to join big companies and leave and possibly join another big company in the future - it's in their DNA to do so. For them, it's about the challenge so I'm not sure that it's a knock on BIG COMPANIES, it's more about trusting your instincts. I think the key for BIG COMPANIES is to stay connected to these talented guys after they leave. CNET has done an excellent job cultivating a deeper relationship with Matt after he left CNET to start Automattic. There are lot's of other examples of companies cultivating very effective alumni networks, companies like McKinsey and Proctor & Gamble.

Mathew

That's a good point, Tony. I guess I wasn't knocking big companies as much as I was trying to point out that not everyone is motivated by the big title and the money. I think companies that realize that, and can either make room in their corporate culture for someone or have them leave on good terms like Matt did, will benefit in the long run -- whether they are big or small.

kareem

tony, thanks for the kind words! interesting point about cultivating alumni networks... i am reminded more and more every day why it's important to cultivate relationships with good people!

mathew, i think tony's right on. at certain points in my career a bigco made a lot of sense, and i've learned tons at my time at espn and fim. at this point in my career, i am able to learn more working on edurev.