Jul
31
I ran across a pretty amazing story about one of the most “hated” CEOs of the “dotcom” world, Julie Wainwright, CEO of pets.com (you know, the sock puppet company). Although she doesn’t really go into why her company failed, she illustrates 5 mistakes that she had made in the last seven years of her life, and how she moved past them.
Here is an excerpt that totally blew me away:
As the public CEO, I failed, and it was a very public failure. In fact, I was labeled one of the biggest failures ever. How bad was it? I had people laugh in my face when I introduced myself for years after the company closed. It happened as recently as a year ago. A couple of people asked me what it felt like to be one of the best-known failures in the U.S. Most just walked away from me. One woman told me to my face that I was a loser. I could go on and on, but you get the point: I became a symbol for something greater than myself, and we aren’t talking puppet envy here.
That is pretty intense. What a reputation (or lack thereof) to have in a very public way. Thinking about my company and our current growth and blessings, I can’t even imagine how she must have felt. Its almost a gamble, right? Entrepreneurs put themselves out there and really try to change the world in some way, and whichever way their scale tips, really does effect something much greater than themselves.
Julie has moved past her problems and has moved on to her new role as CEO for SmartNow.com. I’d like to take a moment to say congratulations to Julie Wainright for having a pretty amazing amount of determination to do better for herself, and I wish her the best in her new venture.
Congrats, Julie!
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A good read. The truth is that screwing up is a component of successful personal growth as well as the growth of an organization. An honest look at mistakes (lessons learned) followed by the implementation of thoughtful actions/processes is all part of the cycle.
“I’d like to take a moment to say congratulations to Julie Wainright for having a pretty amazing amount of determination[...]”
And for having a hell of a lot of patience (to not physically abuse the idiots resorting to name-calling) and a hell of a lot of courage to do it all over again. I hope she succeeds, but either way I applaud her resiliency.