Randi Zuckerberg: In the Blink of an Eye

It’s 2005. Your foot is well and truly in the door with your dream job at Ogilvy & Mather. A year in, you decide to scrap it and work for your younger brother’s under-the-radar start up. No more world-leading reputation. No more job security. And, yep, no more company expense accounts. You’ve just seemingly waved goodbye to the most buoyant of career cruise liners. The question is: What the hell were you thinking?
What possessed you to throw caution to the wind and jump down the start-up chute? Or, as my mum always used to say, “Please, tell me what was so damn important you had to do that?” How about this mum…I’m going to work for Facebook.

Okay, excluding the family flashback for a minute, that’s pretty much how graduate life began for Randi Zuckerberg – something we discussed with her in our latest MeetTheBoss interview at iStrategy’s San Francisco event. And before you start thinking that it was an obvious ‘no-brainer’ decision on hearing the ‘F-word’, consider this: When Randi came on board, her brother had only just secured Facebook’s first investment and the now giant of social networks was little more than a fledgling platform for college students (albeit a very effective one). Indeed, there was little way of Randi knowing that Facebook would turn into the behemoth it is today.

So why did she bite the bullet and jump ship? As she says herself when reminiscing on that first trip to Silicon Valley, “…it was clear that they [Facebook] were making all of these decisions on their own that were very senior. It would have been reserved for a very senior team at Ogilvy & Mather that I probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to touch decisions like that for ten years in my career.”

Fast-forward seven years, and Randi has touched more than a few serious decisions; decisions that have seen her ranked among the ‘Top 50 Digital Power Players’; receive an Emmy nomination for her collaborative work with ABC and Facebook on the US Presidential primaries debate in 2008; earn her a cheeky cameo in a major motion picture; and of course, finally leave as Facebook’s Marketing Director to start her own under-the-radar start-up, R to Z Media. And what did it all stem from? The decision to treat business like life: jump in at the deep end and live for the challenge.

And while that might seem like a rather standard (and debatably cheesy) approach for many, it’s something that fewer and fewer of us are consciously looking out for. Time goes by, routine sets in and those opportunities often become scary. Once that happens, what are we left with?

The frustration that we didn’t have the proverbial kahoonas to take the plunge; a frustration that leads to a range of side effects – from self-pity to resentment and everything in between. But most importantly, it leaves a residue confirming that we didn’t back ourselves; that we didn’t use those goosebumps to our advantage and walk fearlessly into a new realm to chase what we’ve always been looking for.

Indeed, if there’s one thing Randi has proved to us, it’s that the world of business is only as scary as the opportunities you never took; irrespective of how big or small they may seem at the time. By all means, know where you want to go. Map your career path and start walking. But whatever you do, don’t stare at your feet. You’ll only miss what’s passing you by.

Watch the full interview with Randi Zuckerberg

Author: Nick Pryke

Topics:

Digital-Marketing,

IT,

Leadership