Why I walked away from a million dollars
geekwire.com
geekwire.com
"Four years ago, I walked away from Amazon and a million dollars. I was a 21-year-old kid running a billion-dollar team, but I wanted more."
Walked away from a million dollars? How? What is a billion-dollar team?
Flagged.
TLDR: I didn't want a million dollars to sell my company, now here's all the information about my company.
Why not take the actual million, then fund this? Or use the million to fund 1538 students? Seems like a waste to walk away from funding 1538 students.
What's the actual "why" of the decision? It's a nice title, but I can't find the "why" anywhere in the piece. The paragraph that purports to answer why reads like a non sequitur: "Why did I walk away from a million? I wouldn't be here without my education." Explain how walking away happened because of this education.
The piece says it's so rare to be given a chance. By whom? And in what way is it rare for 21 year olds "running a billion dollar team" to be given chances? All data suggests these are the exact guys with an embarrassment of opportunities beating down their doors.
Speaking of explanation, what is a $5M organization? Is that revenue, run rate, valuation counting good will?
Agree with ceejayoz, this reads like a "please click and donate stuff and make us a $6M organization" piece, with no substance but lots of "click and give" links, name checking a few known "geeks" (Dave Schappell, Glenn Kelman, Rich Barton, Tim Ferriss, Alex Algard, Kevin Merritt) to encourage other geeks to get named too.
We keep being told if you win, you’ll be honored on stage at the GeekWire Gala on December 6. Great motive! (And the karma's good too, adding that makes sure it's not just pure crass self promotion, right?)
The idea's great, the cause is great. A zillion charity startups are doing good work in this arena. Having lived and worked in Africa for a decade, focusing on education, this piece doesn't really persuade me of value other than getting my own name in Geekwire.
I wish the piece had also touched more on the work being done and the percentage of money ending up directly in the hands of those being helped (100% we're told in a diagram, so what's the business model?).
And I agree with you. I wish with this title, the piece had explained why he walked away from a million dollars instead of taking that and then using his own money to get going or fund students rather than leaving it on the table and approaching others hat in hand.