I took a mental health day and rode my bicycle mile after mile through the backcountry of Marin county. Seventy-five miles later, I still didn't know what to do. The next morning, I walked into work, puzzling through the options. I can still remember sitting in my office at the end of the hall and looking down the long corridor. In a moment of clarity, I realized my whole future was in that hall, perfectly defined. From my office, I had a unobstructed view of my colleagues in their offices—the junior associates nearest, then the senior associates, the junior partners, the partners, and finally the managing partner at the far end of the hall. A neat and tidy future loomed before me. Sure, the stroll down the hallway could be reassuring and empowering in a way, but it seemed so pat, so determined. In that instant it was if I had already lived all that. Where was the blank piece of paper?
I could not put off my life any longer. I called the people at Apple and took the job.
TO: lenny@alchemy.net
FROM: randy@virtual.net
SUBJECT: A Question
Thanks for your e-mail. I truly enjoyed visiting your Web site. Your father was quite a gardener.
Deferring your life on the chance that Funerals.com will hit it big is a huge gamble. The high odds of failure don't justify betting it will buy you the freedom you want. The course of your life and the course of Funerals.com are not unrelated. Figure out what you care about and do that. If you can do it in the context of Funerals.com, do it from the start. Don't concern yourself with exit strategies.
At key points in my life, I've found it helpful to ask myself a simple question about what I was doing at that moment: What would it take for you to be willing to spend the rest of your life on Funerals.com?
best
r
Chapter Five
THE
ROMANCE,
NOT THE
FINANCE
I WOKE EARLY TO ANOTHER BLUE, blue, cloudless California day, the sweet smell of jasmine sifting through the open windows. I grew up in upstate New York, where sunny days are not to be taken for granted, especially during the gray, dispirited days of winter. It wasn't until I headed off to college in New England that I was able to count on a few sunny days. And that was New England — not exactly a haven for sun worshippers. I started to wonder what a bit more light might do for me. Twenty years after my first trip to San Francisco, I can still remember crossing the Bay Bridge for the very first time after many days and nights on the road from Boston. I knew I was home, instantly.
I brewed a pot of green tea and sipped it in the garden, as Tali and Tika, like Keystone Cops, scampered off to chase the scent of some long-gone deer or coyote. I completed my morning rituals—meditation, the Wall Street Journal, and e-mail.
Lenny had already replied at 5:30 A.M. his time. I was curious if he had gone to bed at all. No wonder he'd looked tired in the Konditorei. Driven days, sleepless nights. I could empathize. I had known that exhausting combination.
TO: randy@virtual.net
FROM: lenny@alchemy.net
SUBJECT: Re: A Question
Randy,
I don't understand “do Funerals.com for the rest of my life.” Nobody commits to anything forever these days. Things change too fast. Of all people, you should be the first to realize that.
But don't doubt my commitment. There's nothing I want more and nothing I won't do to make Funerals.com a success. If you have any doubts about my dedication to this venture, you can forget them. I wouldn't want you or Frank to suspect otherwise. I just need funding. I know I can make this work!
Yours,
Lenny
P.S. Glad you enjoyed my family site. My dad was a very good gardener. It was his passion in life. We always told him he should start a business so he could devote himself to it full time. He said he'd have his chance when he retired.
I never doubted Lenny's drive. It was obvious from the very beginning, even in the armlock he laid on me at the door of the Konditorei. Drive, commitment—those weren't my concern. I wanted to know what he really cared about. I wanted to know his passion. Lenny didn't seem to understand the question. He was beginning to nettle me.
The early morning traffic snarled on the only local road that led out of town to the freeway. On the motorcycle, I bobbed and weaved around the grumbling commuters, remembering an episode of the “Twilight Zone” in which the character finds himself meandering through a crowd of stone-frozen people stuck fast in the middle of their daily routines. I cut up the highway one exit, fields of golden grass on both sides, fingers of fog stretching down the pleats in the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west. I scooted across Sand Hill Road to the complex at 3000, the original Sand Hill address. No spaces, so I jumped the curb and popped the stand.
First up, I sat in on a deal pitch at one of the VC firms where some good friends wanted my opinion. The plan was to sell pet supplies on the Net. The would-be entrepreneurs called their venture PetUniverse.com.
Lenny's presentation was polished, but this one positively gleamed. Here were three guys fresh out of top-of-the-line business schools, and they had managed to shrink the world, or at least all pet owners, into a four-cell matrix. Their projections found the perfect balance between the aggressive and the impossible. They clearly recognized this as a “Better-Faster-Cheaper” play and understood the implications, which all boiled down to one simple dictum: execute at light speed. A herd of other aspiring Petsomethings.com startups had been making the rounds during the last month, too. Sand Hill Road was in a pet feeding frenzy, at least for the moment.
The disconcerting thing about these pet shop boys, all sharp go-getters, was that none of them, they confessed when asked, owned a pet, had ever owned a pet, or—so far as I could tell—had ever wanted to own a pet. I wouldn't have been surprised to discover they were deathly allergic to fur, feathers, and scales.
So why were they doing this? Why was it worth their time? I am always amazed that venture capitalists don't ask that question. Perhaps at this point everyone assumes it's obvious: to get rich. I tried to look at it from their perspective. Maybe this was their lark, a few years invested on the off chance that they would hit it big. Afterward they could get on with whatever was important to them. Too many times, unfortunately, I had seen this attitude lead to a lifetime of successive bets, all heading away from their original dreams. It is too easy to get lost in the hype and swallowed up by the casino economics of it all. It bothered me to see talented young people give up, or defer, their ideals in the hope of a fast buck that was unlikely to ever arrive. In considering my question, “What would make you willing…,” Lenny thought I was suggesting he should plan his life precisely. That's foolish. As he already pointed out, the one thing we can count on is change. But knowing what we require to be willing to do something lifelong provides invaluable self-knowledge.