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Ask HN: Fired from a company I loved- seeking advice
As the title describes, I was fired from a company I loved and am seeking advice on where to go in life and career.
Background:
I joined a late stage startup that I absolutely loved 3 months ago in a sales/business development role. I immediately fell in love with the team and the culture there and piled myself into the team and in my role.
I quickly performed well in my job so my problem didn't arise there... In my final month in August I managed to pull 60% of my small team's results as well as literally 100% of the final results in a higher priority campaign.
Unfortunately, it seems that my downfall came from being too eager/open/stupid in challenging some ideas from one of the founders. I had the idea that it's fine to challenge the status quo or to challenge ideas for the sake of coming out with a better idea in the end. Perhaps this isn't how people on the receiving end felt when I debated (read: argued) with them about the right decisions to make. I truly thought I was doing what was in the interest of growing the company but in the end I guess I failed in recognizing the damage I was causing.
It's like a bad break up- I was in love and now it's gone.
I'm now at a point where I need to figure out what to do with my life next. Should I figure something out for myself? Should I go travel and explore a bit (may be hard with student loan burden)? Should I jump immediately into my next job?
Any comments or suggestions?
- anigbrowl 10y agoBuy a book called '48 laws of power', internalize the results, and the next time see that you stay and the founder who disliked you gets the boot. That won't be easy of course, which is why you need to develop strategy.
- feylin 10y agoThanks for the suggestion! I'm unsure how much I would have liked for somebody to be ousted though... I feel that rather than one party being wrong we did not align in our communication. I'll definitely check out the book though, looks like it could be valuable.
- helloworld 10y agoHave you read Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People"? The book is about to celebrate its 80th birthday, but the advice is truly timeless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...
- feylin 10y agoI've read it before though I suppose I need to read it again to internalize what he talks about. This is clearly a case where I did not properly consider the impacts of my actions in a social context.
- magnumkarter 10y agoA similar thing happen to me, so I feel your pain