Maybe You Shouldn’t Be A Consultant…. From David To Goliath – Choosing Careers in Technology Startups and High Growth Companies

How To Choose? Clearly identify –Short term goals –Long term goals –Risk profile

Short Term Goals Financial Needs –Student/other loans –Rent/mortgage –Other fixed expenses –Retirement/investment/savings Do I know the industry in which I want to work? Where do I want to live? “In the course of your life, it’s a rounding error…”

Long Term Goals How hard do I want to work? Do I want to be married/have a family? When? What sort of responsibilities do I want to have? –Manage people –P&L –Strategic direction Where do I want to live?

How Much Of A Risk Taker Am I? Am I willing to relocate? What standard of living am I willing to accept? Do I want to own a house? Do I want a family? When? How much money is “enough”?

There Is No One Right Answer “There are two kinds of people in this world – those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who don’t…”

Large Company Advantages Tremendous resources Established training processes –Although consulting, banking, and tech firms are notoriously equally bad at management training Stability Benefits

Traditional MBA Jobs Consulting –High Salary/starting bonus –Broad overview of many industries –Excellent set of tools for analyzing problems –High level access at clients –Good spring board –Great benefits –Can be pure strategic – don’t have to get hands dirty –Geographic flexibility

Major Industry Jobs Large technology firms (e.g. Microsoft, Sun, Intel, Dell) –Good salary (median for MIT - $75K/year) –Good signing bonus ($25-45) –Option upside –Lots of non-cash 1 st year compensation –Often located in high “quality of life” areas –Fantastic benefits –Actually get to “do something” –Lots of job function flexibility over time –Learn about running and building a business –Best networking for startup opportunities

Startups Widely varying salary, benefits, and bonus structure –from negative to highly competitive Usually tremendous option/stock upside Very high risk –Even major VCs admit market is currently irrational No geographic flexibility Tremendous learning opportunity Huge impact on company as a whole –Can really mess up a company with one mistake… –Can get in too deep

How To Decide? Do I eventually want to run a company? Consulting High growth company Do I know in what industry I want to work(e.g. tech vs manufacturing)? Consulting Do I have a once in a lifetime startup opportunity? Will I be a better CEO/XXX for having worked at_____ (MS, Dell, etc.)? The consulting firms at which I have offers? Take it! No Yes Maybe No Yes

Why I Chose Microsoft I had –Multiple startup offers from Product Manager to CEO and COO –Consulting opportunities –A business plan with sponsor interest I chose Microsoft because –Better quality of life than any other opportunity (effective cash, financial upside, hours, interesting work, etc.) –Better opportunities for rapid advancement –Opportunity to pitch my ideas –More real world – I directly affect multiple products that millions of people will use –If I decide that a big company is not for me, I will have unparalleled exit opportunities and be a better CEO for spending a few years at Microsoft –Can walk around barefoot and no one cares…