Know your limits

This blog is about my self realization on what it means to be a 'big guy'. To explain my thoughts let me start wandering into my past.

In my last few months of Yahoo! I always used to wonder why the heck was Yahoo's CEO paid approx. 2200 times as me (explained here). I was smart enough to make all the decisions she takes. After all it is all about charting out pros and cons of each decision and then decide on the basis of which side weighs more. And then CEO has so many people under him / her to provide these figures, so ultimately her job is a piece of cake. I always failed to understand the challenges she was facing and could never match her salary with her worth in the company.

I also used to wonder that my work has become monotonic and there is no excitement in what I do. Basically, I always wanted more challenges in work and I was deprived of the same. I thought that I could do much more than what I was doing (mind it, I mean in terms of quality of task and not in terms of working hours). Hence my current job was under utilizing my potential and that was a very very frustrating feeling. Also I soon realized that it is the same for most of the companies no matter where I work. Employees always crib about the bosses, working hours, work culture and so on. On one side I did understand that such employees are losers who can do nothing but to complain, but on the other side I also felt that companies do not do their bit in best utilizing talent of their resources. Companies would prefer most of their employees to be part of the assembly line rather than investing in judging their potential and utilizing their skills. (Previous blog)

So in all I jumped to open my own company to experience a tons of things. Developed a fantastic product in travel domain (http://traveltriangle.com) and started operations. Soon I realized couple of things:

• The challenges that Yahoo's CEO face are no child's play. You need a lot of experience and talent to solve them. These challenges may not even be related to her direct job description, but as trivial as employee hiring, retention, using contacts in industry, getting work done by employees and so on. I mean to say that it is not just the big deals that she has to work on, but also thousands of other stuff and all her decisions have to be very accurate. Trust me this is a very difficult job and I can not do it as neatly as she does. This fact may sound so trivial and so it is, but experiencing this reality has its own charm ;)
• Having said that, I realized my limits at this point of life. I know what I could do and what else will take the hell out of me. Life is always about stretching your limits and so I say 'bring it on'. But it is always good to know where you stand currently. Working on my startup for more than a year now, and I never felt frustrated with what I am doing or that I am under utilizing myself.

To be continued...