Name and title: Randy Holl, chief technology officer and vice president of development
Leaving job security behind and answering the siren call of a dot-com has certainly been the career story of the year. But for real excitement, forget working at a startup. Start your own instead.
Without the resources to get goods and services to market, even the most innovative startups can miss the boat.
Working for a company certainly has its positive points. After all, a regular salary, paid vacations and health care go away the minute you quit the cubicle to strike out on your own.
Cliff McBride wasn't exactly looking for a job. He was content enough with his work as a database administrator for the U.S. government. But then a friend of his wife's told him about Interwoven Inc., a hot Silicon Valley e-commerce company that was looking to hire. As it happened, Interwoven was throwing a brand-new BMW Z3 convertible, or its cash equivalent, into the bargain.
Trillions and trillions: 2.7 trillion of them, to be exact. That's the number of dollars that the business-to-business e-commerce market will reach by 2004, according to Gartner Group Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut.
Lainie Gilby-Anderson, a recruiter at Professional Consulting Network Inc. (PCN) in San Francisco, was shocked when a candidate for a project manager's position turned down a job offer at a management consulting company.
Should you work for an Internet startup? Sure, if the notion of working like a dog suits you. But a few years of indentured servitude at a high-risk dot-com may well be worth it: If part of your compensation includes startup stock and the company does well, you could spend the rest of your life on a beach in Tahiti.