4 ms·

A Second Tour as C.E.O.

62 points by davidu 16y ago

jefe78 16y ago
Yes, yes you do! So good, I finally decided to sign up for a Deluxe account after years as a free user(for my personal network), just because of the story! ZipGrid will be a proud user of OpenDns! How did the new round of investors come to the decision to ultimately promote you(your passion aside)? Were they having a hard time finding a replacement or did they feel you'd been wrongly demoted? EDIT: I'm a longtime user, but I think you should consider adding a demo page so people don't need to register to see what they're missing.
- davidu 16y ago
  Thanks, and good feedback on the need for a demo -- we're revamping the website now, it's long overdue. In regards to your question: I was intimately involved in the fundraising process, having already known Sequoia Capital before they invested. So I knew those guys. When they invested, the former CEO was still CEO. About 5 months into their investment the CEO and the company parted ways and I immediately took over in an interim role. After our first board meeting when I took over as interim CEO the board already seemed pleased with the immediate changes I had made and reminded me that all CEOs are interim CEOs and I should just continue to operate as CEO -- there would be no replacement search.
Bud 16y ago
Congrats on the NYT article. That's got to feel great, in addition to being great publicity.
GFischer 16y ago
I find a paywall when trying to access the article.
- memetichazard 16y ago
  Try going at it through google. http://www.google.ca/search?q=I+make+getting+fired+look+good.+:- http://www.google.ca/search?q=I+make+getting+fired+look+good...) Hm, not sure how to include that ) in the URL, but the shorted search term works anyways.
  - jkuria 16y ago
    thanks for this!
hinathan 16y ago
Good media, David — glad to see things still going strong at OpenDNS.
tastybites 16y ago
I GREW up in Del Mar, Calif., north of San Diego. I got my first job the summer after eighth grade at a small Internet service provider. I called the owner, Christopher Alan, one day and asked if he had a summer internship or a job, and he took a chance on me. My mother would drive me to the train, and I’d take along my skateboard to go from the San Diego train station to the office. Reading stuff like this is so surreal because it nearly mirrors my own experience starting out. I got my first job through a local linux users group mailing list (CEO took a chance on me to do sysadmin and scripting work) - my mom had to drive me to work after school and pick me up in the middle of the night after I was done. Now I run a business and when I look back, it's astonishing how large a chance it really is to hire a kid who can't even drive to write software for your business. The 1990s truly were crazy.
- davidu 16y ago
  I have interns now, and I love having them. I don't think it was because of the 90s. Good interns (who have good mentors) have the heart and passion and remind me why I love doing what I do. Keep in mind that I started my internship in like 95 or 96 -- long before the dot-com craze really took off. :-) And FWIW, I think internships are totally underrated. Whenever I saw my friends in high school spending their summer dicking around it always boggled my mind, even more so in college. I never was an A+ student (though I did okay) but I did always have jobs and worked my ass off when it counted.
  - tastybites 16y ago
    I was also a mediocre student because I was usually out with friends or in front of a computer... although I did somehow end up going to UCSD - you must be talking about the solana beach amtrak station in the article right? :) I took the Surfliner home to Ventura county many times during my 4 years in SD. Either way though, I just think (could be wrong) it's much more rare to find high school kids doing "real" work these days, like admining production servers or writing software that ships to customers.
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
sskates 16y ago
Sorry, I missed the connection the article has to getting fired. Congrats on the article, by the way.
- davidu 16y ago
  Being out of the drivers seat made me realize all the things that I wasn't doing when I was CEO, and which were still not being done the way I thought they should be. But it was easier to see on the outside.
spankythemonk 16y ago
Cool story bro!
StavrosK 16y ago
Hmm, I don't understand how an investor can demote you as CEO of your own company. Can someone explain?
- staunch 16y ago
  He gave up legal control of the company in order to get investment money. It's most likely that the board of directors controlled the company, and the investors controlled the board.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    Oh, I see, thanks. So, as I understand it, he had just one vote on the board, and thus couldn't veto the decision. Thanks for the clarification.
    - davidu 16y ago
      Something like that... :-)
davidu 16y ago
How did the title of my post get changed?

62 points by davidu 16y ago

Yes, yes you do! So good, I finally decided to sign up for a Deluxe account after years as a free user(for my personal network), just because of the story! ZipGrid will be a proud user of OpenDns! How did the new round of investors come to the decision to ultimately promote you(your passion aside)? Were they having a hard time finding a replacement or did they feel you'd been wrongly demoted? EDIT: I'm a longtime user, but I think you should consider adding a demo page so people don't need to register to see what they're missing.

davidu 16y ago
Thanks, and good feedback on the need for a demo -- we're revamping the website now, it's long overdue. In regards to your question: I was intimately involved in the fundraising process, having already known Sequoia Capital before they invested. So I knew those guys. When they invested, the former CEO was still CEO. About 5 months into their investment the CEO and the company parted ways and I immediately took over in an interim role. After our first board meeting when I took over as interim CEO the board already seemed pleased with the immediate changes I had made and reminded me that all CEOs are interim CEOs and I should just continue to operate as CEO -- there would be no replacement search.

Bud 16y ago

Congrats on the NYT article. That's got to feel great, in addition to being great publicity.

GFischer 16y ago

I find a paywall when trying to access the article.

memetichazard 16y ago
Try going at it through google. http://www.google.ca/search?q=I+make+getting+fired+look+good.+:- http://www.google.ca/search?q=I+make+getting+fired+look+good...) Hm, not sure how to include that ) in the URL, but the shorted search term works anyways.
- jkuria 16y ago
  thanks for this!

hinathan 16y ago

Good media, David — glad to see things still going strong at OpenDNS.

tastybites 16y ago

I GREW up in Del Mar, Calif., north of San Diego. I got my first job the summer after eighth grade at a small Internet service provider. I called the owner, Christopher Alan, one day and asked if he had a summer internship or a job, and he took a chance on me. My mother would drive me to the train, and I’d take along my skateboard to go from the San Diego train station to the office. Reading stuff like this is so surreal because it nearly mirrors my own experience starting out. I got my first job through a local linux users group mailing list (CEO took a chance on me to do sysadmin and scripting work) - my mom had to drive me to work after school and pick me up in the middle of the night after I was done. Now I run a business and when I look back, it's astonishing how large a chance it really is to hire a kid who can't even drive to write software for your business. The 1990s truly were crazy.

davidu 16y ago
I have interns now, and I love having them. I don't think it was because of the 90s. Good interns (who have good mentors) have the heart and passion and remind me why I love doing what I do. Keep in mind that I started my internship in like 95 or 96 -- long before the dot-com craze really took off. :-) And FWIW, I think internships are totally underrated. Whenever I saw my friends in high school spending their summer dicking around it always boggled my mind, even more so in college. I never was an A+ student (though I did okay) but I did always have jobs and worked my ass off when it counted.
- tastybites 16y ago
  I was also a mediocre student because I was usually out with friends or in front of a computer... although I did somehow end up going to UCSD - you must be talking about the solana beach amtrak station in the article right? :) I took the Surfliner home to Ventura county many times during my 4 years in SD. Either way though, I just think (could be wrong) it's much more rare to find high school kids doing "real" work these days, like admining production servers or writing software that ships to customers.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago

sskates 16y ago

Sorry, I missed the connection the article has to getting fired. Congrats on the article, by the way.

davidu 16y ago
Being out of the drivers seat made me realize all the things that I wasn't doing when I was CEO, and which were still not being done the way I thought they should be. But it was easier to see on the outside.

spankythemonk 16y ago

Cool story bro!

StavrosK 16y ago

Hmm, I don't understand how an investor can demote you as CEO of your own company. Can someone explain?

staunch 16y ago
He gave up legal control of the company in order to get investment money. It's most likely that the board of directors controlled the company, and the investors controlled the board.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  Oh, I see, thanks. So, as I understand it, he had just one vote on the board, and thus couldn't veto the decision. Thanks for the clarification.
  - davidu 16y ago
    Something like that... :-)

davidu 16y ago

How did the title of my post get changed?