This is a sad week. It’s my last week as an employee of Yahoo! (YHOO).
The last week of a job is always sad. They’re always full of goodbye lunches and farewell drinks. Especially if you’ve been at the company a long time.
There was a time when I used to look forward to my last week at a job. Before Yahoo!, I would generally leave my job after about a year. That was my limit. One year. After that, I’d grow bored and crave a bigger challenge.
Yahoo!, however, was able to keep me challenged for nearly six years. That’s quite a feat, let me tell you. That’s not for a lack of competing job offers either. I was able to take on vastly different roles and responsibilities each year, partly because the company offered lots of opportunities, and partly because the company supported my initiative to take advantage of those opportunities.
But now it’s time for me to move on. I’m off to do my own thing, to be an entrepreneur.
No, it’s not Yahoo!; even if I worked somewhere else, this would still be my last week. No company could keep me right now.
You know what it is? It’s the desire to start something from the ground up. To build something great, yet viable—or starve. To not have that cushion of a steady paycheck and take very real risks. To follow your dreams, your passions, and your own path.
So I’m going into this last week with mixed feelings. There’s the excitement, of course (“Oh man, I’m finally doing it!”). There’s also nervousness (“What if I fail? What if I lose it all?”). And there’s loads of sadness (“I’m really, really going to miss my friends here”). Sniff.
Goodbye, Yahoo!.
