Where are they now?
One of my great joys is serving as a job reference for people who did awesome work at Textio over a long period of time. Jobs are temporary, but the relationships you build on the job can last your entire career.
As a leader, there are few rewards like seeing your former team go on to accomplish amazing things after working with you. Even better if they're accomplishing those amazing things together with people they met on your team.
Some companies have especially strong diasporas. Maybe their alumni went on to even bigger successes (hello PayPal mafia) or maybe the team just stayed close over the years to follow. I always wanted both for Textio alumni.
People we meet at work
Take a minute and jot down the names of ten people outside of family and day-to-day coworkers you've voluntarily spent time with over the last few months. Maybe you met up on purpose, like you arranged lunch or a zoom catchup. Maybe you bumped into them at a party or a walk around your neighborhood and had a nice chat. Maybe you saw them volunteering at your kid's school. Just jot down the first ten names that come to mind.
How many of those ten people did you first meet at work? When I did this exercise recently myself, it was more than half.
At one level, this is not surprising. We spend a lot of hours working. If we're working on something we care about, or working in an environment that is unusually intense or socially connected, it can create deep links between people. This is especially true when people work side by side in person for many years. There is no bond like a crisis bond.
That said, I was still surprised how many of the names I thought of are people that I first met at work.
The diaspora is strong
The other day, someone I worked with at Textio texted me about his new app. (It's called PastryPass, and if you like dessert and live in Seattle, check it out.)
He is far from the first Extio to found a company since we worked together. In fact, just off the top of my head, I can think of over 20 different people from across my time leading Textio who went on to start their own companies. In at least three cases, former Textios founded companies together, two of which are currently active.
This doesn't even count the multiple marriages between people who met at the company, which are arguably the most important cofounder relationships of them all!
For fun, I looked up the first 100 people who worked at Textio to see 1) what they're doing now and 2) whether they're working with anyone else who worked at Textio. Both slices through the data were interesting.
First of all, a sizable percentage (17%) of early employees at Textio have, at some point between the time they left Textio and today, founded their own companies. Not all of the companies worked out, but one thing is clear in the data: That early team was ambitious and talented.
Regardless of their career stage while at Textio, 40% of our first 100 employees are execs or very senior ICs today.
Second, 32% of that early group is currently, right now, working at another company with someone they knew at Textio. I try didn't count up all the people who have ever worked together post-Textio, but I know there are very many; it is the overwhelming majority of the group. This is how you know you've hired great people, when they find ways to keep working together even after leaving the company where they first met.
The diaspora is not only strong, but it's strong together.
There may be no career like a startup career
Especially if you're early in career, there may be nothing you can do to accelerate your growth faster than joining a rapidly growing startup, working hard, and growing with the company. Growth is about two things: your own skills and hard work, and the opportunities in the environment where you happen to be working. Choosing the right environment is as important to your growth as any work you do yourself.
Not surprisingly, a great number of the people we hired early on were hard-working and highly ambitious. They grew a lot while at Textio, faster than people generally can at larger companies. It makes sense that they have continued to choose great environments where they can grow further.
The other thing that strikes me in this data: if you're going to quit, it's worth taking the time to quit well. Be the coworker that people want to work with again, because former coworkers are your best opportunity to get great jobs in the future.
Here's to the diaspora!
Kieran
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