Marcelo Somers

I think that the attitude that many people have about working in big companies can be summarized by a LinkedIn status update I saw recently, written by Marcin Janowski:

There are two kinds of people: those who want to go work for a company to make it successful, and those who want to go work for a successful company.” I’m proud to be the former.

If you’re not yet working for a big company but want to, this is probably what separates you from those people who got in.

Now of course, there is a separate set of people that is even above the top 1%.  These are the guys who have what it takes to be the top 1%, but choose to blaze their own path.  Some call them revolutionaries.  Some call them hackers.  They eventually become entrepreneurs.  These are the guys who aren’t satisfied with how things are, turn our world upside down, and create a better new world in the process.  They take risks that corporate junkies would never imagine taking.  The sad thing is that there are too many people who think that they are better than they are, and not enough people who believe in themselves as much as they should.  In which group do you belong?  Having tried to go this route myself before, even though I could never be considered a top 1% guy (maybe a top 10%), I can testify that it’s crazy risky.  The venture world is truly a meritocracy, and maybe that’s what makes it so alluring: the opportunity to develop and prove that you are more than a job description.  Eventually, being a top guy in the corporate world is too bureaucratic, political, and constraining.  One might even argue dehumanizing.  But the average person on the outside looking in wouldn’t understand this.

Absolutely amazing read. If you think you are or ever have aspirations to be a rockstar, read this.

In a blogging world full of profiles of startups, this tackles a different challenge - how to be truly amazing in a large company.