I just quit a great job at Google – WTF?
Some of you may have noticed that during the last few weeks, I’ve attended a lot of events. In 17 days in September, I went to six events and spoke at five of them. Some of you also noticed some changes to my LinkedIn profile. It’s true.
I quit Google.
What the heck was I thinking??!!? The economy is on shaky ground. We kicked 2023 off with the most layoffs tech has seen in two decades. Hiring at many organizations is throttled or paused. Even when hiring does return again, organizations aren’t even sure what zipcode they want their teams living in because we’re still in the midst of a worldwide debate on remote, vs hybrid, vs in-office. There’s an AI revolution swelling above us all and probably a robot revolution coming soon after this one.
I was working at Google – maybe one of the safest places I could possibly work. I had a great boss, a great bosses’ boss, a great team. We had a product that millions of customers loved. And I was excited about the AI-fueled, recommendations-engine strategy that I was bringing to life. Oh, and the money was pretty great.
So why….in the world… would I walk away? It was simple.
Teams need my help.
In the past three decades, I’ve led teams through six of the most disruptive transformations the world of work has ever seen. In 1995, I helped my team figure out PCs. In 2000, I helped them to reinvent the way they worked by sharing information in realtime over the Internet. In 2005, I helped my team reinvent the way they communicated with the power of Mobile. In 2010, I helped my team transition to The Cloud. In 2015, I helped them figure out what Data Science was. In 2020, I helped my team to survive sudden Remote Work using Slack, Zoom, and Figma. I REALLY like helping my team to make work, work better.
Then it hit me.
I don’t upgrade software, I reinvent the way people work.
I’m great at helping teams understand how to navigate massive, disruptive, changes to the way teams work. But for three decades, I’ve been helping one team at a time. It’s time for me to expand my scope. I’m done building roadmaps and PRDs. But I’m not even remotely done improving user journeys. I might be done fixing bugs in my software. But I’m not done fixing the EVEN MORE IMPORTANT bugs on our teams and the way we work.
Teams are already struggling and now this AI revolution is about to change everything about the way we work.
Because I can, I must
I can help. And because I can, I must. I have a responsibility to try to help as many teams as I can through this next transition and the ones after that. Starting now. I help teams to reinvent the way they work. My next few months are pretty busy.
I’m finishing my book on The Innovation Machine. If you want book updates, make sure to subscribe to my blog. If you’d like to help, I’d love your feedback and I’m always looking for great stories from great teams. I also need some crappy stories from the trainwreck-teams (you know who you are), so you can share those privately with me as well.
I’m also speaking at a bunch of events coming soon, so I’ll have tons of video to share soon.
If you’re hosting an event about AI, Innovation, &/or The Future of Teams,… or if you just need one… then let’s chat.
Thanks for always being such supportive friends and colleagues!
As always, please let me know how I can be helpful!
-Dan
DAN CHUPARKOFF
CEO & Founder, Reinvention Labs
Innovative Team-Transformer from Google, McKinsey, & Atlassian
https://danchuparkoff.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuparkoff/