I was asked the other day about my view of making career choices. It’s simple, collect the best experiences and knowledge you can. That’s how you grow as a person and professionally. And the more you grow, the more you can give. And the more you can give, the more you get. Go where you can learn the most – the rest follows.
This, in many ways, parallels Mark’s comment on Facebook:
Just as people go to McKinsey & Co. because they want to go into business, or IBM Corp. to learn sales, or play for the University of Southern California if they want to go to the NFL, Zuckerberg said he wants Facebook to be the best place to learn how to build an Internet business.
“If you want to learn how to build really good products and really good practices at a company that builds stuff really quickly and have a big impact, I’d argue there’s no better place than Facebook to do that now,” Zuckerberg said.
I also like Zappos’ view from the same story:
“We now provide mentorship and training so employees can join at the entry level and over a period of five to seven years have the opportunity and training to become senior leaders in the company,” Hsieh said. “Constant growth is what will keep them in the company for a very long time.”
Zappos also does other things to keep employees satisfied, such as giving smaller promotions more often. For example, it may give three promotions over six months that add up to the equivalent of one promotion at 18 months.
Facebook doesn’t want to keep people forever. Zappos values longevity.
