Rejected again!
But stick with it, things will get better!
Reminder: We’re still in Low Power Mode, as I take a few days off. During Low Power Mode, we skip the “7 other things” and revisit some “greatest hits” from the last 5 years of the newsletter. Here’s a great one from before 95% of you were subscribers!
That’s OK. Would have been a long commute.
I love this kind of story. It's sort of like the guy who wound up a billionaire (and the original CEO of Uber) because he replied to a tweet in 2010.
Anyway, meet Brian Acton. (If you already know who he is and what his story is, don't ruin it for everyone else.) Exactly 13 years ago today, he posted this on Twitter:
Acton had been kind of a big deal in the Web 1.0 days. He graduated from Stanford and wound up an early employee at Yahoo. (Remember when Yahoo was the big thing?) He'd also been at Apple.
But, he'd lost a huge chunk of his fortune in the dotcom bust, around 2000 and 2001. I don't think he was broke, exactly; reports are that he took a year and traveled the world around 2007 or 2008.
Still, like a lot of us, he needed to work to live. But: No-go at Facebook.
And (posted a couple of months earlier, but it's easier for me to tell the story like this), he'd also been turned down at Twitter. Which he also documented, on Twitter:
He was 37 at the time, and he had no idea what was next. He toyed with a startup idea, but it wasn't going anywhere. And as Marc Cenedella wrote on Medium, he was. ...
...feeling a bit washed up. His 11 years as an early employee at Yahoo! was now two years in the past. He'd bounced from job to job in Silicon Valley's startup land ... It's kind of scary to be pushing 40 and feel like you're being pushed out the door.
But the most beautiful thing about Brian is the good grace and optimism with which he handled his rejection?--?
"It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure." The hurt radiates from those 140 characters. And also a strength of character.
Setting aside the fact that neither you nor I believe that "pushing 40" is old (probably not Marc Cenedella either, as I have it on good authority he’s over 50), there's a fun happy ending to discuss here.
Acton went to work with an engineer named Jan Koum, with whom he'd been friends for years, since the two had worked for Yahoo together.
Acton got "the grand title of 'co-founder' and no salary for his efforts," as Cenedella points out--but the two became co-founders of WhatsApp.
Acton joined on in November 2009, three months after his Facebook interview. They launched officially in January 2010. Four years later, Facebook bought their company for $19 billion.
Acton's take? An estimated $3 billion at the time--although now for a variety of reasons he's only worth about $2.8 billion according to Forbes.
Anyway, I’ve ruminating on something lately, about how some people manage to handle rejection much better than others. It hit me first after Curt Scheier wrote about James Patterson for use a while back, who said he wasn’t discouraged by getting 31 rejection letters—and having Stephen King call him “a terrible writer.”
There’s something worth mining there. Stay tuned.
Oh, and by the way, I'd be remiss not to repeat briefly the story of the other WhatsApp founder, Koum, who had immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine at age 16, worked at a grocery store, and eventually dropped out of San Jose State University before working at Yahoo.
His stake in WhatsApp was even greater than Acton's. When he signed the paperwork from Facebook that would make him a billionaire by acquiring his company, he did so outside the welfare office where he used to get food stamps every month.
How's that for a happy ending?
A classic American story ( immigrant and all) I hope we can retain it. Fingers 🤞 crossed.
Very inspiring story. I like to say rejection is God’s protection. Always keep plugging along.