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 I
sit typing this in at one of 108 PCs in one of those monster cybercafes
springing up all over northern Europe. This is big by Copenhagen
standards, I am told-but the one I checked mail at in Amsterdam
was three times larger. The amazing thing is how these seem to have
no staff and run completely automated. It's full of users at midnight-showing,
I guess, how focus can make you successful quickly and scalably.
I'm thinking of focus as that's what a few
of you have written to me about. A common question is: ''We're three
(or five or x) partners who started our business as equals, now
how should we share responsibilities?''
Having been through some interesting times at
''democratically run'' companies, I'm a big believer in autocracy.
One person with focus should run a company. Not a committee. Too
many cooks will seriously spoil a business broth.
This is hard. You may think you really know
your partners well, and they you. But trust me. There's a very good
reason every Fortune 500 company and successful family business
house in the world has just one decision maker. Only one person
takes the final responsibility. So if you're in a partnership-work
it out now, before it's too late.
When it comes to responsibility, I believe
you need one focused person. But when it comes to any one person,
I believe in the opposite. Let me explain.
One of you wrote to say you had several passions.
Music, business, and programming, if I remember right. You'd asked
which one you should choose. And my answer was ''all of the above''.
I've never been a big believer in that adage
about jack of all trades. I do think you can be master of more than
one. Indeed, king of as many trades as you're passionate about.
One of my heroes, Richard Feynman, was a Nobel laureate in Physics
who worked on quantum theory. And the bomb. And the Challenger shuttle
disaster probe. But he was also an ace congo drummer, an expert
lockpicker and, yes, a best-selling author. Ian Anderson doesn't
just play flute and front Jethro Tull. He's one of Britain's bigger
fish farmers. And let me not even get into da Vinci. Would you say
he had a successful career as a painter? An inventor? Or a scientist?
An engineer perhaps?
What about business-could you be a successful
CEO of a business and do more? Sure, look at Oprah Winfrey. Or Steve
Jobs, who runs Apple and Pixar-two not-so-middling companies. Or
Linus Torvalds, who held down a day job at Transmeta while being
a beacon to the worldwide Linux movement.
Why do we then resist the notion when it comes
to ourselves? I have a theory that says multiple careers should
be the rule, not the exception.
It may sound simplistic, but here goes: Let's
start by assuming that all human beings are inherently different
from each other. Hence, each of us has a different set of talents
from all others. Now let's make a second assumption. That each of
us is happiest when we're using our talents to the fullest.
Now isn't it ironic that we go through life,
education and career preparation with six billion of us trying to
fit into some six hundred boxes called 'careers'?
My theory is simple. If there are six billion
of us, there should be six billion different careers. And the way
to create that 'new, different' career for each of us is to do a
combination of all the things that make us happy.
There is nothing wrong in working at parallel
passions. I, for one, used to be embarrassed when explaining to
my folks what I did in life. They'd ask: Do I run companies? Write?
Invest? Travel? Speak? Mentor?
My answer was ''Yes'' to all of the above.
I knew that was confusing them as they couldn't pigeonhole me, put
me in a box. It took me a while, but I've come to terms with it.
I guess so have they.
I realised, as any chef would say, too many
broths would never spoil a cook.
Mahesh Murthy, an angel investor, heads
Passionfund. He earlier ran Channel V and, before that, helped launch
Yahoo! and Amazon at a Valley-based interactive marketing firm.
Reach him at Mahesh@passionfund.com.
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