Goodbye AOL
Yesterday was my last day at AOL. After interning for two summers, more than five years as a full-timer and many dodged rounds of layoffs, I have decided to move onto the next step in my career. There are many reasons why I should stay at AOL, but there are some that make it necessary to leave. I owe a lot if not all of my development to AOL - after all it was my first job right out of college. I didn’t think that my last two weeks would be that difficult, but I have started to realize how many people I have worked and become friends with over the years.
My next company is a small ~130 person company in Rockville, MD called InvestorPlace Media. I’m not too excited about having 495 and 270 in my commute, but I am really excited about the level of responsibility and potential for influence that I can have. I will be expanding on some of my natural curiosity of internet as a Web Analyst, analyzing traffic trends and hopefully maximizing nerdy buzz words for them like ROI, Page Views and Unique Visitors. There is much to learn about web analytics, so currently I have my nose buried in Avinash Kaushik’s excellent and extremely thorough book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. I saw him speak when he came to AOL, and that definitely piqued my interest in the subject.I’ll miss all the good times, beer bashes, team outtings, the gym, bowling, but mostly the people. It has been an extremely tough choice for me to leave, and it may end up being a great decision or a terrible decision, but I won’t know until I try…
Noooo….. don’t goooo…..
(said like the beginning of the original Resident Evil… I never realized how cheesy it was)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCZP-SxSmD8
Congrats man! Best of luck with the new job.
Jeff: Having left four jobs (and two of those being a part of layoffs!) I can confidently say that each was a good decision and moved the ball forward for my career in a very positive way.
Looking back the key was to keep up the passion and fire.
It is tough to leave friends, always, but…. Onwards and Upwards.
Best Wishes,
Avinash.
Good luck…you still owe me cdcat!
@ Chris - sorry man, had to go!
@ Dave - thanks for the good wishes, I’ll be in touch about coming out to SF again soon!
@ Avinash - Wow, thanks for commenting! I’m sure I’ll have many more questions for you after I read your book, but thanks for the positive reinforcement. I had been struggling with the decision but I feel it’ll be the right choice.
@ Lou - I’m getting right on that, actually worked on it today. You’ll have cdcat in your inbox in no time.