#sit downs

It’s hard to rank meetings in terms of best to worst. But if I had to, the best meeting I ever had was my last day at Aviary. It wasn’t a partnership meeting or anything; it was an exit sit-down with Avi Muchnick, the co-founder and CEO (at that time, he then moved into Chief Product role last year before they sold to Adobe last month).

At the time, Avi had taken me under his wing for the past two years where we would have bi-monthly sit downs, each time talking about a different topic from raising capital and hiring to deciding what to build and how to get press. Those were some of the best and most career accelerating sit-downs of my life. But this last meeting, the exit-interview was different. Avi said, before we sat down, that he wouldn’t have done this if he didn’t like me and the things he will say will probably make me feel a bit uncomfortable. And because he thinks I should know, he was going to share the good and the bad. He reiterated that no one is perfect and some things he was going to say were going to be things I wouldn’t agree with at first but if I took a step back I might agree in the future.

Anyways, I’m not going to go into detail of the entire meeting but I do want to share one thing.

At the meeting, Avi said, “Alex, don’t mistake being well-known for accomplishment.” At the time I was becoming more well-known in the tech community, my blog was getting decent traffic, I was on my way to opening up the NY office and leading the business side of the API platform for a recently USV-backed startup and I was included in a Top-25 under 25 list on Business Insider just a few weeks before. I was out and about, getting more “known” in the NY-tech community. Avi made a point to make sure I remembered that just because people in the community now knew who I was didn’t mean I’d done jack shit yet (he said it nicer). I hadn't started a company, gotten tons of users, exited or anything that is true accomplishment in the technology world. And he was right. I don't think I was getting a big head or anything but I can see how I could get there very quickly when I hadn’t truly accomplished much at that point.

Originally that line stuck with me. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I thought he was wrong. But over time I understood what he really meant and it was more of a warning sign than “this-is-you-right-now.”

and then since it's rome i'd probs wanna stay extra days who knows