I Quit the Monies

I quit the monies, chasing the dream.

That was the short version I sent to a friend when the news got out that I had left Shutterstock for Reonomy. It was a joke, but it was also pretty much the whole decision.

Shutterstock was public. The company had grown like crazy, and I had grown with it. I had spent years building technology operations, carrying a wide set of responsibilities, and working with people I cared about. There was money, momentum, and a path I understood.

Reonomy was earlier. Much earlier. It was a commercial real estate data company with a small team, a lot left to build, and no guarantee that any of it would work. I had already spent about a hundred hours with the team before starting full-time, enough to know I wanted more of it.

The move was not a rejection of Shutterstock. I was proud of what we had done there. It was the pull of getting close to the beginning again, when the product, team, office, and operating habits were all still being worked out at the same time.

I had made this kind of jump before. In the note to my friend I added, “Just like when I left Boulder.” That was the pattern I recognized in myself. A solid thing in one hand, an unfinished thing in the other, and a strong urge to find out what the unfinished thing could become.

There was nothing clever about the choice. I knew what I was leaving and I knew I could not know what came next. My first full-time week had already become phones, office space, hiring, product conversations, and whatever else came through the door.

So: I quit the monies. Now we had to build the dream part.