Selling my first company did not end my education. It started a new one. In late 1995, Intuit agreed to buy Galt, and the deal closed the following year. I spent about a year inside Intuit. It was extraordinary.
I worked directly with Bill Campbell, the coach so many of the Valley’s great leaders relied on, and alongside Scott Cook, Intuit’s co-founder, and Bill Harris, the executive who had called to buy us. I was, more or less, Mr. Internet. They had bought my company, and my job was to help them bring the internet into everything they did.
Watching how they led was an education no business school could give me.
Your title makes you a manager; your people make you a leader.
My product inside their platform.
That year I watched NETworth become the core of the Quicken Financial Network. I had sold because NETworth would be a better product inside Intuit than outside it. Seeing that happen from the inside taught me a question I still ask about every company I build or back. Does my product belong inside a larger platform?
Doors that would not have opened for me alone.
Scott Cook or Bill Campbell would pick up the phone, call a founder and ask to come see what they were building. I went along. Netscape. eBay. Jeff Bezos. Pretty much anyone doing anything exciting on the internet. I had just sold my first company, and I was sitting across from the people building the internet.
Campbell rarely took public credit. He built people. Eric Schmidt and two colleagues from Google wrote his playbook down in Trillion Dollar Coach: the best managers are coaches, and their success shows up in other people. Sylvia Ann Hewlett draws the line I lived that year. A mentor gives you advice. A sponsor spends their own standing to open doors for you.
Why I left.
Meanwhile, I had joined the board of WiseWire. At one point I was asked to join an investment firm. I said no. As good as Intuit was, I knew I had to get back into the entrepreneurial fray. I was enamored with intelligent agents. I had watched collaborative filtering work, and work well. I wanted to build that, not invest in it. So I left Intuit and joined WiseWire as an operator. For a while I thought I had chosen wrong. I tell that story in A Magazine Cover Is a Snapshot, Not a Verdict.
I am an operator. I wanted to be in the arena.
Make the most of your year inside.
- Name who you are learning fromWrite the two or three leaders closest to you now, and one thing each does that you want to learn.
- Go where they goAsk to join one meeting or visit you would not normally attend.
- Know mentor from sponsorList who gives you advice and who opens doors. If the second list is empty, that is your gap.
- Ask the operator questionDo you want to build the thing you are excited about, or back it? The answer tells you when to leave.
Quick answers.
Did Rob Frasca work at Intuit?
Yes. After Intuit agreed in late 1995 to buy his company Galt, and the deal closed the following year, Rob Frasca spent about a year inside Intuit, working with Bill Campbell, Scott Cook and Bill Harris to bring the internet into Intuit’s business.
Why did Rob Frasca leave Intuit for WiseWire?
He wanted to be an operator again. He was enamored with intelligent agents and collaborative filtering, and he wanted to build that technology rather than invest in it, so he left Intuit and joined WiseWire.
Sources.
- Rob Frasca, The Creator’s Journey (forthcoming), Chapter VIII, Capital and the Exit.
- Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle, Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell (Harper Business, 2019). Donna Dubinsky’s line as quoted in the book; wording checked against Ameet Ranadive’s review on Medium. Link is the publisher page for the UK edition. Source
- Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast-Track Your Career (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Source