The Start-Up of You (2012) is a guide to how you can leverage strategies used by start-ups in your own career: being adaptable, building relationships and pursuing breakout opportunities.
In a world where entire industries are being ravaged by global competition and traditional career paths are fast becoming dead-ends, everyone needs to hustle like an entrepreneur.
Reid Hoffman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author. He has either invested in or worked for a number of high-profile companies, including PayPal, Zynga and Facebook, but is perhaps best known for being the co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn.
Ben Casnocha is an American entrepreneur and author. He founded his first company at 12 and at 18 was named one of America’s best young entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek.
Upgrade to Premium now and get unlimited access to the Blinkist library. Read or listen to key insights from the world’s best nonfiction.
Upgrade to PremiumThe Blinkist app gives you the key ideas from a bestselling nonfiction book in just 15 minutes. Available in bitesize text and audio, the app makes it easier than ever to find time to read.
Start free trialGet unlimited access to the most important ideas in business, investing, marketing, psychology, politics, and more. Stay ahead of the curve with recommended reading lists curated by experts.
Start free trialThe Start-Up of You (2012) is a guide to how you can leverage strategies used by start-ups in your own career: being adaptable, building relationships and pursuing breakout opportunities.
In a world where entire industries are being ravaged by global competition and traditional career paths are fast becoming dead-ends, everyone needs to hustle like an entrepreneur.
In the past, the career of an educated person usually followed a fairly predictable trajectory: Much like getting on an escalator, he or she would start with an entry-level position at a large organization, and gradually rise through the ranks, gaining more seniority and income as the years passed.
Today, however, due to macroeconomic forces like globalization and technology, the escalator has come to a standstill at every level. There are fewer people retiring, hardly any entry-level positions opening up and employees in middle management find themselves waiting for promotions which might never come.
If your own career plan has thus far relied on this escalator, alarm bells should be ringing in your head.
Fortunately, you can succeed professionally even without the escalator. Start-up companies have always had to live with unpredictability and change, and hence to succeed professionally today, you must apply a start-up mindset to your professional development.
The most important lesson is to be adaptable and vigilant: always consider yourself in permanent beta, i.e. as a work in progress, eager to learn and develop.
Prioritize learning opportunities. Too often, 20 years of experience really means one year of experience repeated 20 times. In permanent beta each year should be full of new challenges and developments.
Although a cozy corporate job on the escalator may seem low-risk, it actually increases your risks in the long run. If you are used to constantly adapting, even drastic changes cannot hurt you, because you will always land on your feet. If, however, you are used to passively standing on the career escalator, an unexpected event like being fired could be disastrous.
So remember, adopt a start-up mentality to succeed in today’s turbulent professional world.