Experiences at AOL

Through a friend

Put a smart group of problem solvers together, remove unnecessary bureaucracy & "processes", step back and watch them do the impossible.

Network, network, network! Be proactive, make it a point to meet new people and work with different and diverse teams. Ask questions and don't be shy -- you have to layout your own career path and pursue it aggressively. Be opportunistic. Don't get too comfortable and be prepared to be re-org'd every 6mos to 1 year ;)...

Fast paced and challenging
Smart & talented marketing teams
Diverse team with varied perspectives

- Casual Environment
- Brilliant People
- Killer Benefits

it's easy for companies to lose their competitive advantage. strategy has to be constantly refreshed and has to evolve over time. when i left AOL in 2002, the company's biggest challenge was overcoming its roots. changing from within is hard. i hear that it is starting to get better ... 4 yrs later ... but that it's still a tough environment....

I was never all that impressed with the quality of the talent at AOL. Sure, there were some brilliant people there, but one thing I learned was that in a company of 10,000 people not everyone is an A player. I also learned that for a product company, knowing your users is critical. I also learned that it's easy for companies that are doing well to forget that they have to constantly revisit strategy and literally reinvent themselves every few years. For too long, AOL was a one-trick poney (the dial-up ISP business) and despite several of us pointing out the trouble on the horizon from broadband (i'd love to show anyone who ever cares to read it the 60 page deck I did in 2001 on how AOL was just about to get crushed by broadband), the company was so stuck in inertia that it couldn't react fast enough. I also learned that when companies that have been going up and up and up for a long time start to go down, the politics can get awful nasty. ...