As I was walking along the beautiful IIT-M campus yesterday evening, I bumped onto this inspiring entrepreneur who currently runs a startup in the education domain. I have met him earlier in a couple of events, but happened to talk to him only then. We kept walking, discussing various challenges in the life-cycle of a startup,how he solved, etc.. We kept walking for almost an hour when I thought it was time for me to get back home. Just before I took leave, (out of curiosity) I asked him about his educational background. He replied ‘I just completed my Masters in Entrepreneurship‘! What?! Is there a course M.S Entrepreneurship?! Sounded weird to me. I just nodded and left.

This thread kept running in my mind, difficult to kill (damn the geekiness!:)). I just questioned myself ‘What is entrepreneurship?‘. Entrepreneurship to me is a feeling – a passionate feeling towards your idea/product. It’s something that can *not* be taught in a classroom or can be studied from a textbook.

When you see a beautiful girl pass by, there is this sudden rush of energy,2 wires standing up,bells ringing on top of your head and nothing else visible to your eye! That’s exactly how an entrepreneur feels when he gets an idea! – can strike him anywhere, anytime, when he is taking a shower, or an evening stroll.

You cannot wait, but to gather more details about the girl. Is she from my college? How old is she? How can I impress her? Does she already have a bf? Is she an FCP? . An entrepreneur does similar things – is a similar offering of my service already present? What is my USP? let me google for similar products like these, can i conduct a survey to see the response?

Once all these cobwebs are cleared out, your phone bills are on the rise! Message more, talk more, dream more, etc.. On the other side, you start off with the prototype, keep improving the design,dream about making the product really big, innovate and add new features, etc..

Now comes the D-day when you say those magical 3 words to your loved one and you are fully committed! On the other front, it’s just 2 words (I quit!) and it’s definitely not to your loved one! . You are fully committed to your startup and its your life! And as the history says, ‘They happily lived ever after’ .

These thoughts occurred to me as I was on my way back home!. Now, don’t ask me an analogy for a serial entrepreneur

Yes, it’s true! Today will be my last working day at Amazon! I never expected it to be so quick (14 months) and never thought I would start something on my own after this! It’s been exciting,fun,happening,interesting,mindblowing – all in the same breath!

Why is it the *best* MNC to work for ?

• Amazon has got the right mix of fun and smartness embedded in their employees, you have no other choice but to just admire.
• The amount of visibility you get while working on a project is tremendous. I doubt any other company would have freshers directly interacting with top management people and principal engineers
• Exposure to the latest technology from a wide variety of streams in Computer Science. You get to work on Distributed Systems, Databases, UI (CSS/HTML,Perl,Ruby), OS (Kindle), etc. At the end of the day you will have such a wide breadth of knowledge
• Extremely customer centric and focused – *Never* do you see Amazon doing stuff just for the heck of it. Every project you are involved in, has its own USP and unless and otherwise it’s something novel, Amazon doesn’t put it’s step forward
• Fun Atmosphere – Even though you can see a geeky halo at the back, you can talk to anyone about anything – T20, Sachin (vs) Sehwag, many more… There is absolutely no barrier to talk to people. I never imagined I would refer to my manager as Dude(always) and even give bumps on his bday
• Startup Flavor – You don’t work on a product for 2 years to see it’s release. The deadlines are little hard making you learn more and deliver more in quick time. C’mon there is a production push almost every week!
• I am pretty sure you would have heard about the compensation and perks . Makes you wonder whether you are really worth that much!
• Guess how they celebrated recession? – hired a whole bunch of SDE’s and formed a couple of new teams here! Have you ever heard Amazon firing people?

There would have only been 2 reasons why I could have possibly thought of parting from this organization.

• To pursue my graduate studies

(OR)

• To start my own startup.

After pondering over deeply and consulting with a lot of senior people, I thought I should do justice to both my conscience and to Amazon. Hence, I have taken the bold move of starting on my own with my friends, and time will tell how it works!

Altogether it was an amazing experience to work here. To explain my current position, its a very tough state to be in – you really love the job but still you need to go! At the end of the day, I would really really really miss the people out here and hope to stay in touch!

I still remember when the HR sent me a pre-placement form during my campus recruitment. It said “Amazon is looking to hire superstars!”. I chuckled then, but I now realize, you guys are really superstars! I have worked hard, had fun and should be making history soon ! Good luck with all the projects,keep making Amazon proud and more importantly stay connected! (vivmbbs AT GMail)