“What has kept you at Circle for almost 8 years?”
I get this question a lot so figured I’d wrap it into a post.
In short, 3 things keep me here, in this order:
1) Growth
2) Momentum
3) Money
📈 Growth
Circle has changed and grown a lot over the years. We’ve scaled from 40 people, to 300, back down to 40, and up to 900.
We were an exchange, a trade desk, a payments app, an payments infra provider, and now are building a stablecoin network.
I’ve started/helped start four functions here (FP&A, Sales, PMM, Monetization, Strategy) and led other high impact stuff (Internationalization, Growth)
There’s no shortage of complex problems and smart people to learn from. The growth has been tremendous.
🏎️ Momentum
When we started out, nobody wanted to work with a crypto company, except for some sketchy high risk credit card processor.
Today everyone IS working with us. Major financial institutions (Blackrock, Visa, Standard Chartered & more), fintech apps (Robinhood, Nubank, Grab, Elektra & more) and governments (US, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brazil & more)
Irrespective of the headlines, crypto has had up to the right momentum since I started. The outlook is strong. Progress feels good, and has also helped create personal growth for me.
💰 Money
I think it’s disingenuous not to talk about money when talking about retention. That’s why a lot of us do this work thing, and economic security is foundational.
Circle wants to pay me more (see growth), can pay me more and my equity is worth more (see momentum).
There has been meaningful increases in my comp every year since I started, and my comp fits my lifestyle.
8 years is an ETERNITY for my generation to stay at the same place. I obsess over the decision to stay or go, and it has made sense to stay.
I feel lucky that Circle has given me so much, and know not everyone else has such luck.
It’s so so important to have a crystal clear reason for staying at your current gig, and to revisit those reasons often.
Time is finite. Maximize it.
The future starts now!