It has been 4 months since leaving Xiaomi, and I have been on a sabbatical to get myself refreshed and rebooted.
There are a couple of reasons why I decided to leave in the first place.
The first being the increasing misalignment on the marketing direction and company management.
Second being the company forcing my hand to make a career decision. Both of which I’ll not elaborate here.
I also needed to settle down and buy a home, in which stopping my income would help get me out of the sandwich class, and subsequently be eligible to buy a much more affordable place.
Lastly, I wasn’t learning much at work. I’ve done countless launch events, a shitload of content planning, and other repetitive marketing stuff every day. I wasn’t getting challenged. The company’s disorganised mess wasn’t helping either. I was sliding into a comfort zone. Not good.
And so with these reasons in place, I took the leap of faith to leave a decent paying job and clear my mind before deciding on what to do next. At this point, I just wanted to travel and do trips I always wanted to, but never had the time for. I had an open interview with a global MNC, which an exciting company to venture into. Doing marketing for for this brand would be super difficult, and that’s what made it interesting. After that dragged and fell through, I’ve had more interviews and chats with companies and headhunters, but nothing was really biting. It was fine as I was still traveling around Southeast Asia, and did manage to secure my dream home in the meantime.
Interesting as it is, life has it’s way of throwing opportunities at those who are patient. I’d never expect to scored an interview with Alibaba, but I did. It was with their cloud computing department, and somehow, I managed to coast through the interviews and landed and offer.
Alibaba. OH-M-GEE.
I rejected the offer though. Cue friends at this point who were conveniently pointing out how crazy I was to do that after not having a job for four months.
Many would have jumped at the opportunity, and it would have been kind of what I’m looking to do — expand my marketing experience in a different product category and domain. It was marketing cloud computing B2B. The overall offer was pretty significant when you include the stock options. I thought hard and long before making the decision — it was not easy.
Here’s my thought process.
– Pros: Alibaba is a huge brand that many would have loved to work for. Cloud computing is going to be a major business of global growth in the new few years. Everything about it looks exciting. Stock options were good. I would have the opportunity to work with a smart team and do global branding which would have including sponsoring FIFA World Cup 2018 and Olympics 2020.
– Cons: It was a role based in Beijing. China taxes were high and I didn’t fancy taking home a monthly salary similar to the early years of my career. To be honest the offer package was pretty decent — it’s just that paying taxes and rent on top of mortgage just wasn’t the deal right now. Do I love cloud computing? No. At the end of the day the brand outweighs my understand and passion for the product. It’ll never be as fun as compared to working for a consumer electronics company.
So that’s it. As I write this the stock price hit an all time high at US$191.50. No regrets, Jack! Don’t look back!
That, in a nutshell was why I turned down the opportunity to join a company with a market cap of US$488B. Since turning down the offer, I’ve felt free again. Interviewing and negotiating offers can be highly stressful. I strongly believe that there will be something more suitable out there. Something I’m passionate about. Something I’ll love waking up to work on. Some company that’s a better cultural fit. In the meantime, I’ll keep workin’ and sharpening my skill and craft. You never know when it’ll be called into action. This episode definitely got me all motivated and hyped up again.
In the meantime, I’m now traveling the Northwest of US. Hey, a guy’s gotta travel, right?
-j
tweet me @jacktang or drop me a mail at jack@supercoolsocial.com if you’d like a chat over coffee.