Phil's $.02

Like all good things, my time as Shopzilla’s VP of Engineering has come to an end after 5 years and more than 225,000 miles logged in my daily commute.  As I look forward to my next adventure, I’d thought I’d share some of what inspired me to commute more than 200 miles for work each day:

A truly world-class team

I get it… Everyone says it.  Some even believe.  I know it.  In a company full of good people, Shopzilla’s technology teams are truly world-class – sporting some of the best and brightest minds in the industry.  After setting the stage for a few years, Tech at Shopzilla evolved into true business partners and thought leaders; A team passionate about the mission and their role in achieving it.

A special shout-out goes to Jody and to my Sr. team – Tara, Juan Paul, Rony, Bernadet, Rod, Tim, Siobhain and Lauren.  Thank you for your leadership and for allowing me to lead you.  I am proud of what we’ve created.  (those without links should take the hint to put your blogs up

A challenge worthy of the best

Shopzilla has both great people and great opportunities for them to achieve and learn from.  From Red October (before my time), to Site 2, Ratings, B2B, Publisher, Nouns, Beso and a thousand other projects big and small, Shopzilla has always risen to the challenge of being and building the best.

When I first arrived at Shopzilla I heard the story of a company that barely survived the dot bomb days.  With very little money left and nothing to lose, somebody had the “crazy” idea of turning a merchant ratings company into a comparison shopping marketplace.  From that idea to building one of the largest comparison shopping networks on the planet, Shopzilla is full of epic business, product and technology challenges for our people to sink their teeth into.

A little bit of magic

Then, there is the magic.  Maybe it’s the special mix of people and opportunity. Maybe it’s the fact that the company is built on relationships and an unusually strong sense of shared mission.  Whatever the magic is, Shopzilla is special and people can feel it from the time they come in for an interview.

That magic has helped fuel some of the greatest successes of my career and some of the most impactful relationships and friendships of my life.

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Of course, I’ve had some downs with my ups; Shopzilla is a long way from perfect.  Still, Shopzilla was a fantastic journey filled with challenge, growth, great people, achievement, success and a magic that just isn’t found everywhere.  Shopzilla is also where I discovered a passion for creating products that marry disruptive technology with a large and demanding consumer audience.

What’s Next?

My next adventure is with Betfair, a London-based peer-to-peer betting exchange.  With transaction volumes that rival the mainstream stock markets, Betfair have found their huge, eager and demanding audience.

Why’d I pick this company?

• I’m passionate about our users – so are they.
• I’m passionate about performance at extreme scale – CHECK.
• I’m passionate about creating world-class products based on truly disruptive technology – them too.
• I’m also passionate about building teams that can accomplish anything.  Something tells me Betfair will be into that one as well

So far, so good.

I start in May and I literally can’t wait to hit the ground.  Betfair, if you are listening, Here I come!  With a little hard work, we’ll make some magic of our own.

Rodney Barlow, a seasoned Architect at Shopzilla, has introduced the concept of a Fire Chief – an Agile role designed to protect a team’s yield while still responding to production issues.  In his article, Shopzilla’s Fire Chief – Running Cover for your Team, Rod tells us:

• Teams can have their cake and eat it too: Responding to problems without killing yield
• Removing the “Fire Chief” from a team’s capacity can increase velocity and improve quality
• A culture of passion and ownership can make an otherwise tough role coveted and fun
• Practical steps for creating an effective Fire Chief on your team

Why does any of this matter?  Rod writes:

With few exceptions, it generally doesn’t take an entire team to fight a fire.  The “all hands on deck” approach to production issues is often born from a misguided – albeit well-intentioned – desire to resolve an issue quickly in order to get back to work on the “new stuff”.  Best case, this approach may optimize a single engineer’s time-to-resolution at the cost of lowering the overall yield of the team.  Worst case, “drop everything” is a trained response designed as much to create the appearance of motion as any real progress.

…

While the first step may be acknowledging the need for a strategy, the real “magic” in making your strategy work comes from teams’ ownership of the need.

(entire article here)

Read more about Shopzilla’s approach to creating business value through technology on Shopzilla’s Tech Blog.

Colin Powell has long been one of the public figures I most respect.  From his time as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to his service both before and after, Powell wields an incisive intellect and has powerful and practical wisdom to share.

A few weeks ago, my boss at Shopzilla forwarded A Leadership Primer – a presentation given by Colin Powell on leadership and victory in business and life.  I highly recommend viewing the entire presentation – but here are the summary “Lessons” from his presentation:

• Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
• The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.  They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care.  Either case is a failure of leadership.
• Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites.  Experts often possess more data than judgment.
• Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.
• Never neglect details.  When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be double vigilant.
• You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.
• Keep looking below surface appearances.  Don’t shrink from doing so because you might not like what you find.
• Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.  Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.
• Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
• Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.
• Fit no stereotypes.  Don’t chase the latest management fads.  The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team’s mission.
• Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
• “Powell’s Rules for Picking People: “  Look for intelligence and judgment and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners.  Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.
• Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers who can cut through argument, debate and doubt – to offer a solution everybody can understand.
• [paraphrased] Use the formula (Probability of success) = 40 to 70 – where the numbers are the percentage of information acquired.  Once the information is in the 40-70 range, go with your gut.
• The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.
• Have fun in your command.  Don’t always run at a breakneck pace.
• Command is lonely

Powell finishes with:  “Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.”

I had the chance to hear Powell speak years ago just after he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.  His command authority is palpable.  Literally, you could feel that he had commanded the greatest force in the history of the world from the word, “Hello”.  His talk that day was on these tenets of leadership and have served as a foundational influence in my leadership style ever since.