The dotcom boom period of the late ’90s was when my sales career took off like a rocket. I had joined a startup as employee number 38 as the first Business Sales rep and within 2 years was managing a sales team of 35 people selling millions of dollars of services a year.
I ate up the entire dotcom “gold rush story”. Microsoft, Netscape, Napster, Yahoo and Locos were making ordinary people into instant millionaires. Founders were touted as “heroes” and geniuses on the covers of magazines like Wired and Forbes. I devoured stories about these founders. I followed the advice in biographies published on CEOs from startups and from bluechip companies like GE that were thriving.
It seemed like everyone I admired was worshipping at the feet of these newly minted leaders and I was no different.
I was hoping that some of their overnight success and wealth would rub off on me. I watched their keynote speeches hoping to glean some secret to their success. I attended local networking events in an effort to meet our city’s bigshots so that they could take me under their wing and propel my success.
None of it worked.
My success came gradually over a 30 year career with lots of hard work, time, and good fortune – plus far too many mistakes and setbacks and bad decisions to count.
Time and experience taught me a valuable lesson.
Today it seems so obvious and misguided when I observe people blatantly worshipping and pandering to some “king” in the hopes of getting favored treatment.
I feel a bit of pity for them and a bit of revulsion.
Here are some examples:
Joe Rogan has struck it big with his podcast – when his less successful guests kiss up to him it’s quite pathetic. Everyone wants a piece of that $100-$200 million dollar jackpot.
Elon Musk is idolized as a genius. He’s intelligent no doubt. He got lucky too with his timing on PayPal. His league of fan worshippers is surprising given his lack of tact.
Trump. Wealthy? Yes. Became President – yep. Knows how to work crowds, self promote and manipulate others – absolutely. But watching GOP politicians issues up to him is pathetic. Especially since he’s proven he’ll turn on any of them at any moment.
Tech Millionaires – They are still the darlings of media, business and finance. Why? Because they are young and wealthy. They were in the right time with the right product and benefited from good fortune. That doesn’t make them thoughtful, good leaders or good role models. Some probably are. Many probably were just lucky.
Today, I can admire the success of the “kings”:
- Rogan’s “do it my way approach”.
- Musk building Tesla and Space X
- Other tech founder who built companies like Facebook, Uber, and others
I am envious of their success too. I wish I had that kind of money and security. I also think it would be a blast to run a company.
But I no longer bow down and kiss their rings.
I’ve got everything I need and most of what I want already. They have nothing to offer me.
And even if they did – I still wouldn’t kiss their rings.