Be a Startup Superstar

Chapter 1Use the Tech Start‐Up Boom to Zoom

A start‐up is “the largest group of rebels, rule‐breakers, and unconventional thinkers that you can find to create breakthrough change in the world.”

—Chris Kane, co‐founder and CEO of Munchmoney

Picture this: a lecture hall crammed with students in their last semester. The professor asks for a show of hands—who is planning on applying to a Fortune 500 company, or a top five tech giant? A sea of hands rises. A start‐up? Merely a smattering. This was the scene that my friend, Josiah Sternfeld, professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, described to me.

I was surprised. I'd spent my entire career working for a string of tech start‐ups, making millions of dollars, countless friends, and indelible memories in the process. It seemed nonsensical to me that so few business school students had considered start‐ups, while at the same time so many young companies found themselves in talent droughts. With so many unemployed and underemployed young people, I tried to imagine why so few had raised their hands to apply for a job at a start‐up in tech. Maybe because so many are carrying student loan debt, they fear it would be too risky to work for a company with no track record.

But I had to wonder if all those eager undergrads gunning for the Fortune 500 gigs ended up employed. I thought not—as my friend discovered, everyone wants to work for these companies. The big corporates have the name, the prestige, ...