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  I didn’t mention that Qualcomm had already turned me down, and I was lucky enough to be able to leverage the Qualcomm interest into a job with PRTM.

  A few weeks later, my wife and I checked into a Marriott in Orange County. As we got the keys to the room, I asked the clerk, “What’s the weather look like for tomorrow?” His answer was, “Seventy-eight degrees and sunny. Just like every other day.”

  The job came with a slightly lower salary than Qualcomm’s would have, and it involved a lot of travel, but still, I had made it to sunny California.

  THEN MOVE RIGHT BACK

  Stephen had gotten me a great opportunity at PRTM. I was in the wireless space and finally out of Toronto. PRTM was known for having deep knowledge of the industry, and many of the leading companies, including Qualcomm, were clients.

  My first contract was with MCI, one of the largest long-distance carriers in the United States, and they were secretly thinking about building a wireless network. PRTM’s job was to create the specification for that network while the executives decided whether to take what would be a major leap forward for the company. The company was based in Washington, D.C., and I was able to continue living in Toronto for the first few months of the assignment while my wife and I argued about whether moving to California was such a good idea.

  Eventually, after an ultimatum from my bosses at PRTM, we pulled the trigger and bought a house. I wasn’t thrilled about living near their office in Orange County instead of San Diego, so I bought a house in a suburb of San Diego, reasoning that I was traveling all the time anyway, and San Diego’s airport was just as close to me as LAX was to the PRTM office.

  The day we moved into our new house in San Diego, I stood outside and admired it. I admired the red BMW in the driveway, the beautiful garden and hot tub in the backyard, and the cloudless sky. Life was great. So why did I feel so awful? I was having trouble waking up in the mornings. I didn’t want to unpack our moving boxes. Despite a huge step forward in my career, I felt moribund. What the hell was going on? I wasn’t sulking over not getting the Qualcomm job—I was rational enough to be happy despite not getting exactly what I wanted. I just had no energy.

  I saw a therapist who asked me a few questions and then, since I didn’t have insomnia, declared me unhappy, not clinically depressed. He told me I would snap out of it, and my wife agreed, saying, “You’re not depressed, you’re just being lazy.”

  A few months later, a senior partner at PRTM called me into his office. I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong, and work was going well despite my lack of enthusiasm for it. He got straight to the point. “Sanjay, we have a contract that you’d be perfect for, but I’m worried about putting you on it. It’s in Canada—in Toronto, in fact—and they need a wireless telecom expert.” He looked at me intensely for a moment and then asked, “Are you happy here? You delayed moving to California for four months, and then when you moved here, you moved to San Diego instead of near the office. Are you with us long term?”

  I responded truthfully. “Of course, I want to be a partner here.”

  He then explained that sometimes clients poached consultants. They were prohibited from doing so by contract, but the firm was unlikely to sue a client, so PRTM relied on the loyalty of its employees instead. He said, “If you’re any good, they’ll offer you a job. They’re growing like crazy. I need to know you’ll stay with us.” It was a flashback to my Nortel MBA scholarship, and I gave the same answer, with every intention of keeping my word. “Don’t worry, I like it here.”

  A week later, I was standing in the office of the Director of Technology at Clearnet, a fledgling Canadian wireless carrier. It was my office. I was thirty years old, and I had become a director, even if it was just on an interim basis.

  Like any good consulting firm, PRTM had inflated my credentials to get the contract, and there was a team of ten wireless engineers outside my office, waiting for me to start directing them. I was still relatively new to wireless and completely new to managing full-time staff. I felt like an impostor, and I was completely paranoid that, any moment now, someone would ask me a question and I’d be exposed.

  Clearnet was well financed, and we were putting together a proposal to be one of a small group of applicants to be awarded wireless spectrum by the Canadian government in order to provide more competition in the market. It was a daunting task, and my group was responsible for the technical portion of the submission, which was due in two months, the period of my interim assignment. I was exhilarated but also scared—this was real, this was important, and I didn’t know what I was doing.

  So I did what any good consultant does. I worked longer hours than anyone else. I read enough to stay three days ahead of everyone else. And I focused on something I was good at—reading and editing, which I had developed a talent for after being named editor of the business school paper at Cornell in my second year there. I worked harder and enjoyed myself more than in any professional period in my life. My energy was spectacular; I slept for only a few hours at a time, once surprising my assistant when she found me sleeping under my desk after being at the office all night.

  It turned out I was good at motivating and leading a team, and nobody questioned my credentials as the director of the group. I was even able to convince a former coworker, Mac, from Nortel days, to come work for us. Mac had kept in touch and still called me “Hap,” my childhood nickname. His joining Clearnet turned out to be a life-changing decision for both of us, and our paths would cross many more times.

  I was working hard, and Clearnet started recruiting me almost immediately. Within my first two weeks there, the head of engineering, Eric, invited me out for dinner with our wives at North 44, one of Toronto’s leading restaurants. There was no overt approach at the time, but Eric wanted to make sure I felt appreciated.

  As things were progressing well, Eric did later come to me and ask if I’d be willing to join Clearnet as a regular employee. “Doesn’t that go against your contract with PRTM?” I asked him.

  “Yes, and I’ll get a tongue-lashing from your boss. We might even have to pay a penalty, but it’s really just a cost of recruiting. We like you here and think you’d be a great addition to the team.” I said I’d think about it.

  Shortly after, Wayne, the head of marketing and a co-founder of Clearnet, approached me and repeated Eric’s offer, adding that if I wasn’t willing to stay for an engineering job, they’d be interesting in hiring me at a senior level in other roles as well. He offered, “We’re creating a new customer service function as we go operational. I know you love customer strategy. Or you could work with me in marketing.” I decided to see how far this would go and asked him what the salary would be. He turned the question back to me, asking, “How much do you need?” With bonus, I was making just over $100,000 a year at PRTM by that point, so I said, “I think I’d need to have $140,000 a year to join Clearnet.”

  Wayne leaned back and smiled as he said, “You realize that you just asked for more money than I make?” I was surprised and a bit disappointed. Then he added, “Of course, we offer stock options, and you’re not getting that at PRTM.”

  If I had accepted that offer, or any of the other offers that Clearnet made, those stock options would have been worth millions only a couple of years later. I wish I could say I turned down Clearnet because of the promise I made to my boss at PRTM. But in reality, I wanted to take the job, and my wife vetoed it. By then we were expecting our first child, and she didn’t want to be uprooted only a year after agreeing to move to the United States for the sake of my career. I was unhappy, but I couldn’t reasonably ask her to make such a large sacrifice again.

  Soon my interim assignment was over, and I wasn’t going to join Clearnet full time, so it was time to head back to California. But before I left, Eric approached me and asked, “If you’re not going to join us, then do you know anyone else who might?” I thought of Stephen, who had brought me into PRTM and was as Canadian as I was. And I thought maybe I had
a way to pay back that favor. I called Stephen, explained the situation, and suggested that if he took a follow-on assignment with Clearnet, it might result in a great opportunity to return to Canada.

  Stephen took the assignment from PRTM, and a few months later he was offered the job that could have been mine, which he accepted. He also got the stock options, and I believe he must have done quite well when, a couple of years later, Clearnet was bought by Telus, one of Canada’s largest telecom carriers.

  Stephen was eventually to become CTO of Bell Canada Enterprises, one of the most powerful technology positions in the country—in fact, in all of North America. I’ve had more than one moment of brooding about the job that should have been mine, but I’ve come to realize that, despite our comparable technical abilities, Stephen rose rapidly because he had far better interpersonal skills. In the coming years, I would have plenty of opportunity to display my inferiority in that regard. I would probably have been fired within a year of returning to Canada.

  In the meantime, I was back in San Diego, wondering what my next assignment would be.

  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

  During our time in San Diego, my wife and I were going through some difficulties. She was trained as a doctor in Canada and wasn’t able to practice in the United States. Once I had US permanent residency (a green card), she’d be able to write some exams and get a visa to practice, but the process of applying for and getting a green card was taking longer than expected. The combination of my travelling continuously and her being unable to work was beginning to take its toll.

  As I returned to San Diego, however, her pregnancy had a side effect: my consulting firm had a policy of not sending new fathers on assignments that required significant travel. But after months of exhilaration at Clearnet, returning to San Diego and being confined to local assignments started to put me into a funk. Throughout my life, I’d had regular cycles of energy followed by the blahs. Sometimes I’d sleep in till noon, missing classes or work, and other times I’d wake up early and sleep only a few hours a night, furiously completing a crunch assignment or project. I thought this was just one of those periods of low energy and reasoned that, since I was upset about not getting a big promotion by moving to Clearnet, then maybe working aggressively on being promoted within PRTM might help me recover. So I became focused on rising within the consulting firm and making partner.

  I knew the path to partnership required being able to sell consulting services as well as execute them, so whenever I had the opportunity, I would pitch companies on our services. The partner responsible for my career development was Fred*, and one morning I went into his office to tell him, “Hey, I just wanted to let you know I met this guy last night who works at AT&T, and after I told him a bit about PRTM, he said he’d like to meet with you.” I beamed. Fred’s response was, “Look, your job is to consult where I tell you to consult, and my job is to find clients. How about you do your job, and I’ll do mine?”

  Taken aback at his response, I nodded and walked dejectedly out of his office. He was a senior partner at the firm, so it didn’t seem likely that he was worried about me making him look bad. I felt hurt that I’d done something I was so proud of—that I expected would be appreciated—and it had gotten me in trouble instead. The funk continued.

  With my wife expecting in a few months, I was given assignments that would allow me to stay relatively close to home. I had a two-month stint at an IBM division in San Francisco, and then I was unassigned for a week while they figured out what to do with me if I couldn’t travel.

  Qualcomm was a big client of theirs in San Diego, but I knew that if they were worried about me leaving to join a client, I’d never get that assignment.

  On October 4, 1995, my wife and I were blessed with the arrival of our daughter, Nikhita, and it brought matters to a head at PRTM. Faced with either leaving me to sit on a couch cleaning baby bottles or let me bring in revenue despite the risk that I’d leave, they chose to assign me to Qualcomm.

  I was thrilled. The project was to help them design mathematical models for distribution of cell towers in a city. It was similar to work my team had done for Clearnet, and I was looking forward to diving into the details. PRTM had already lost a few consultants to Qualcomm, but they seemed to have a good working relationship, and Qualcomm just paid them a “recruiting fee” whenever they stole someone. I didn’t expect I’d get anywhere myself; after all, Chris Simpson still ran marketing there, and he didn’t sound like the kind of guy who changed his mind easily.

  ---

  While at PRTM and Qualcomm, I really focused on developing my skills. Other than when I was being yelled at, I had always gotten promoted quickly. One reason is that I was a good communicator, beginning with writing. Whether it was emails, articles, or jotting on post-it notes, I took a serious interest in writing and continued to get better.

  Soon after shutting down VideoDrive and refocusing on success at Nortel, I had begun writing magazine articles and trying to get them published in professional publications. I gradually honed my abilities, and my byline was soon appearing in industry trade magazines. I even had an article about pricing in the cellular industry appear in WIRED magazine, and the aura of expertise that came with such publications aided me tremendously in getting promotions and plum assignments.

  I also decided to get over some serious fears I had about public speaking. I heard Jerry Seinfeld make the joke, “It turns out that the two biggest fears people have are public speaking and dying. That’s right, public speaking ranks ahead of dying. Which means that most people at a funeral would rather be in the box than giving the eulogy.” I identified with the joke, having been brought to tears in seventh grade by my English teacher, Mrs. Spinney, who looked and acted just like her name sounds. I had frozen up in the middle of a speech on how Galileo measured the speed of light, and she belittled me until I started to cry, whereupon she disgustedly said, “Oh, sit down. And stop crying just because you don’t know how to give a speech.”

  After joining Toastmasters while I was at Nortel, I continued to grow as a public speaker, and I took every opportunity I could to practice, even though I usually got sick to my stomach both before and after any significant speaking engagement. After my appearance at Cornell discussing the failure of VideoDrive, I had lots of opportunities to talk about my experiences.

  There was another thing I did well, and it was actually the most important. I did what I said I was going to do. It sounds simple, but in reality, most people don’t pull this off. Once I recorded a voicemail message that said in part, “Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you within twenty-four hours.” A professional colleague, upon hearing the recording the first time, left me a message saying, “I’m starting a timer.” When I called him a few hours later, he said, “That’s a dumb thing to put in a voicemail message. How do you avoid disappointing people?”

  “I return the call in twenty-four hours,” I replied.

  ---

  I expected to do well at PRTM, despite my partner’s disapproval of my partner-like behavior. After my first year, I expected to get some indication at my review that I was going to be made a partner soon. All of my clients were giving me good reviews, including Qualcomm, so I also thought they’d give me a nice raise to keep me motivated to stay.

  Annual performance reviews almost always went well for me by now. Looking back on the unhelpful advice from my first review at Nortel, where my manager Ben had said, “Just keep working hard,” I realized that as an older junior manager himself, he had no more idea of how to get ahead than I did at the time.

  Christine*, the partner newly assigned as my mentor at PRTM, was a prim and attractive Asian woman who was well liked in the firm. I considered myself lucky to be working with her and looked forward to my annual review. As a partner herself, I expected that she would be able to give me concrete feedback on how to get promoted quickly. That optimism lasted only about five minutes into the review session.

  �
�Sanjay, the company isn’t sure you’re committed to being with us long term. We feel that you’re being compensated fairly, and you won’t be getting a raise. We want to see just how committed you are to being a consultant, and then we’ll take another look.”

  I was disappointed and asked for clarification. “Okay, I understand the perception that I’m not committed, after all I did buy a house in San Diego, but I also turned down a—” and I stopped, realizing that the company probably didn’t know I’d been offered the Clearnet job. “I turned down, uh, other offers. I want to make partner.”

  “You’re on partner track,” Christina replied. “We’re just not sure you really want to be a consultant. It’s not going to happen tomorrow; it will take some hard work and patience.” When I asked for specific feedback on my performance, Christine’s only commentary was, “Well, you do this clicking thing with your tongue when you end sentences.”

  I shook my head. “What?” I couldn’t believe that was the extent of her feedback.

  She saw my confusion and added, “Seriously, it’s annoying. Stop doing it.” I paid attention for a moment and realized I did drop my tongue at the end of some sentences, so I said I’d fix that. But what could I do about my job performance? I was told to “just keep at it.”

  I was frustrated, but a colleague later told me, “You have to understand, the partners make all their money from guys like us. They pay us okay but bill us out at much higher rates, so the longer they can keep us out of the partnership pool, the more money they make. And sometimes you do make a clicking noise when you end sentences.”