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Marc Andreessen’s Guide to (not) Career Planning

I recently discovered the treasure trove that is Marc Andreessen’s blog archives. If you don’t know who Marc Andreessen is, please look him up on Wikipedia this instant.

One of his series of posts was especially priceless, and this was his guide dedicated to helping recent college graduates map out their careers. I just wanted to share the plethora of quotes that were the highlights for me:

 

The first rule of career planning: Do not plan your career.

 The second rule of career planning: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.

I believe you should look at your career as a portfolio of jobs/roles/opportunities. Each job that you take, each role that you choose to fill, each opportunity you pursue, will have a certain potential return – the benefits you can get from taking it, whether those benefits come in the form of income, skill development, experience, geographic location, or something else. Each job will also have a certain risk profile — the things that could go wrong, from getting fired for not being able to handle the job’s demands, to having to move somewhere you don’t want to, to the company going bankrupt, to the opportunity cost of not pursuing some other attractive opportunity.

Once you start thinking this way, you can think strategically about your career over its likely 50+ year timespan.

The issue is that without taking risk, you can’t exploit any opportunities.

If you intend to have an impact on the world, the faster you start developing concrete skills that will be useful in the real world, the better – and your undergrad degree is a great place to start. Once you get into the real world and you’re primed for success, then you can pursue your passion.

 

Don’t worry about being a small fish in a big pond – you want to always be in the best pond possible, because that’s how you will get exposed to the best people and the best opportunities in your field.

 

Seek to be a double/triple/quadruple threat.

Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

 

If you have lived an orchestated existence, gone to great schools, participated in lots of extracurricular activities, had parents who really concentrated hard on developing you broadly and exposing you to lots of cultural experiences, and graduated from an elite university in the first 22 or more years of your life, you are in danger of entering the real world, being smacked hard across the face by reality, and never recovering.

What do I mean? It’s possible you got all the way through those first 22 or more years and are now entering the workforce without ever really challenging yourself. This sounds silly because you’ve been working hard your whole life, but working hard is not what I’m talking about. You’ve been continuously surrounded by a state of the art parental and educational support structure — a safety net — and you have yet to make tough decisions, by yourself, in the absence of good information, and to live with the consequences of screwing up.

In my opinion, it’s now critically important to get into the real world and really challenge yourself — expose yourself to risk — put yourself in situations where you will succeed or fail by your own decisions and actions, and where that success or failure will be highly visible.

 

When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this:

Pick an industry where the founders of the industry — the founders of the important companies in the industry — are still alive and actively involved.


If you are young and want to have an impact, you want to be in an industry where there is a lot of growth and change and flux and opportunity.

 

Never worry about being a small fish in a big pond. Being a big fish in a small pond sucks — you will hit the ceiling on what you can achieve quickly, and nobody will care. Optimize at all times for being in the most dynamic and exciting pond you can find. That is where the great opportunities can be found.

 

Apply this rule when selecting which company to go to. Go to the company where all the action is happening.

 Also apply this rule when selecting which city to live in. Go to the city where all the action is happening.

 In a rapidly changing field like technology, the best place to get experience when you’re starting out is in younger, high-growth companies.

 

How to Turn Any Internship Interview Into an Epic Win

It’s official: I’ll be interning at Udemy this summer! This internship has been my dream internship for a while now, so I was ecstatic when I finally got the call extending the offer.

The best part is that while I actually did not receive an offer the first time I went through the interview process, I was able to hustle my way back to change the team’s minds and win the internship. That is a great story about hustle that I will have to write about another time.

In this post, I am sharing some of my secrets on the internship interview that I learned from spending 50+ hours over the last couple of years in actual interviews, practicing interviews, and studying advice from great resources like Ramit Sethi and Michael Ellsberg.

Lots of online resources out there spout “interview advice”, but in reality, they are full of hot air. How many times have you read through websites that told you lame advice like be polite, prepare some questions to ask, and dress well?

You already knew all of that! I’m here to share with you advice that is totally different.

I’m here to share with you what I consider to be gamechangers in the interview process.

Don’t wait to implement this advice to get your dream internship.

Let’s begin.

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Tip #1: Add value before you walk through the door

This is the most important piece of advice I can give you. Do not just tell the interviewer how you can help him, show him at the interview.

How do you do this, you might ask?

Prepare written proposals that show exactly what problem you can solve, how you can solve them, and what experience demonstrates that you are capable of that work. Even better, just solve the problems and show the interviewer the finished product.

For example, for a marketing internship, that means studying the organization/business’s marketing presence and finding problems that you can solve. Afterwards, write a 1-2 page marketing proposal that outlines the 2-3 proposals you have for solving the problems you uncovered.

Then during the interview, share these proposals when the time is right, and it will blow the interviewer’s mind.

By adding value before you walk in through the door, you are doing a couple of things:

  1. You are differentiating yourself from the rest of the other applicants. So few applicants add value during the interview process that you instantly separate yourself from the pack in the mind of the interviewer.
  2. You are giving the interviewer a taste of your work that leaves him desiring more. Assuming you delivered something of value, the interviewer will be thinking: “If this kid delivered this much value for free, think of what he could do if we hired him.”

 

Tip #2: Come up with your 3 Must-Says

Too many people treat interviews as a completely passive and reactionary experience where the interviewer is supposed ask you questions and you are supposed to answer. Too few people think of interviews as a two-way street as a conversation. And thus, they neglect the opportunity to tell their story the way they want to.

Instead of a passive experience, think of the interview as a game where you have a few things you must say during the interview and try to fit them in as answers whenever you find it appropriate.

One of the things you should always have prepared for your interview are your 3 Must-Says. These 3 Must-Says help answer the interviewer’s questions of “Why us?” or “Why do you think you’re a good fit for this internship?”

Get in the head of the interviewer. Address his greatest concerns by using your Must-Says.

For example, your 3 Must-Says for a startup marketing internship might be that 1. you can adapt quickly to change (startups are always changing their marketing strategy) 2. you have great insight on what the customer is thinking (startups need customers) and 3. you get things done (startups need people who are willing to get their hands dirty).

 

Tip #3: Use a 1-page cheat sheet

Prepare for the interview by writing down all your notes on a 1-page cheat sheet that you can use as a back-up reference during the interview. Even if you don’t look down at the cheat sheet, writing one will make you feel more prepared and confident during the actual interview.

Jenny Blake created a great template for a cheat sheet that I personally use (with some modifications) and highly recommend. Get it here.

 

Tip #4: Ask for 30 seconds on the tough questions

I wish I knew this a long time ago, because I would have saved myself from answering some interviewers’ questions with embarrassing, half-concocted answers. Needless to say, I learned from these mistakes.

If your interviewer asks you a particularly difficult question to answer (especially one which you don’t have a prepared answer for), then ask if you can have 30 seconds to answer it. And take the time to think through your answer, jot down some notes, and come up with a great answer.

This works particularly well in phone/Skype interviews although it could work in person if the conversation feels comfortable up to that point.

You can ask for 30 seconds once or twice during the interview — but no more than that. Otherwise, you might be testing the interviewer’s patience, and he might question your competence.

 

Tip #5: Express your excitement about the internship

Practice saying the phrase, “Thank you for meeting with me for this interview. I am very excited to be here.” Then say it at the beginning and end of every interview. And mean it.

So many people forget this crucial little detail.

Interviewers experience plenty of dull work days where interviews are their only escape. Don’t give them a boring interview if you can help it.

Share with them what excites you about their company and the position. They will really appreciate it, and you will help remind them why they are doing their job still.

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That concludes my interview tips. Hope I gave you enough ideas to test out in your next internship interview!

Let me know in the comments what you thought and if you have any other interesting tips to add to the list.

If you liked this post, you can sign-up for my e-mail list for more free actionable career and life advice.

The Road Less Traveled: 3 Lessons from a Student Entrepreneur

*Originally written for the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network Fall 2011 newsletter

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“Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug my sophomore year when I realized that startups can be a part of innovative solutions to society’s most pressing problems. I was attending the StartingBloc Institute in Boston, where young professionals learned how to increase their social impact through their careers, exponentially. There, I met numerous like-minded students who were my age and already founding and growing social ventures. These young founders inspired me to take my first steps into the world of social entrepreneurship.

Previously, I had interned at Root Cause, a nonprofit research and consulting firm. I had also volunteered with several education and social service nonprofits. Through these experiences, I learned a lot about the challenges nonprofits face in trying to serve their beneficiaries under chronic resource shortages. I saw well-intentioned leaders who were passionate about conquering serious social problems but did not have the support and skillset to make their visions a reality. I became truly interested in changing the ways nonprofits and social enterprises maximize their social impact.

Armed with passion and ambition, I set off on my entrepreneurial journey as the Co-Founder and Director of Development of the Seeds Consulting Group, a student-run nonprofit & social enterprise consulting venture. I also became a Class of 1982 Social Entrepreneurship Fellow in order to help a community non-profit, Upper Valley Business & Education Partnership, develop a performance measurement system.

Here are some of the lessons I have learned so far that I wish I knew when I started:

1. Figure out your first things before your second things.

Gregg Fairbrothers speaks frequently about the first things and second things principle.  He cautions aspiring entrepreneurs: “you can’t get second things by putting them first. You can only get second things by putting first things first.”

In other words, first things are your why. I admit; they are tough to figure out. But I believe that aspiring young startup founders only cheat themselves by not developing a clear answer to this fundamental question. Without a firm grasp of why you are starting a venture, it is very difficult to stay motivated enough to plow through the obstacles that commonly plague startups.

In my case, I came to Dartmouth with the first thing of changing the world for the better. To make life better and easier for the people that I care about. However, I almost lost sight of this vision because I was sucked in by the herd mentality created by corporate recruiting like many of my peers. Fortunately, I broke away in time, but I had to learn how to filter out the noise so that I could stay razor focused on my vision.

2. Surround yourself with the right people.

As the old adage goes: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

In other words, surround yourself with people whose characteristics you wish to emulate and learn from.

The entrepreneurial journey can be lonely. For aspiring undergraduate founders, not knowing where to go for help and support can really stifle drive. To make this journey easier, join groups where you can meet and share ideas with entrepreneurial individuals. It might be hard to find a group like this, but take initiative.

At Dartmouth, I dreamed of having a “tribe” of undergraduate student entrepreneurs that acted as a support network and social group. I could not find an existing one. So after a couple months of networking and planning, I co-founded a chapter of the Kairos Society, an international network of student entrepreneurs building innovative ventures, with the goal of cultivating this tribe on campus. We have just recently accepted our first cohort of 15 fellows.

3. No one is going to tell you what to do and how to do it.

Startup founders often joke that there is a quickstart guide to starting your own venture.

In reality, no such instruction manual exists. Even if it did, it would be no substitute for experience and the intuition you gain from experience.

For most of my time in college, I made the mistake of applying for numerous prestigious leadership programs, thinking that they could show me steps I needed to take to start my own innovative initiatives.

I was wrong. While these programs were fascinating and helped shape my vision, it was still up to me to piece together all the resources I collected and act upon them to build my own venture. That is why the most valuable advice I received on this topic was “just do it own your own.”

Do not wait for others to tell you what to do. Be hungry. Be self-motivated.