Some news to share – I’m moving on from SlideShare. After an amazing nine year journey since its launch from New Delhi in 2006, I think now is the right time to pass on the baton and focus on the next stage of my professional life. My co-founders – Rashmi & Jon moved on a few months ago, so this marks the exit of the entire founding team.
All these nine years – there’s never been a dull day at work. Building a consumer internet platform that millions of professionals across the world use in their daily working lives has been a truly humbling experience. This wouldn’t have been possible without the support of SlideShare’s vibrant community.
SlideShare is in great shape. Its now an integral part of LinkedIn, has capable leadership and the team is completely killing it. Nov’14 saw the highest traffic numbers ever, and it is poised to break into the world’s top 100 websites. To a founder, this gives confidence that SlideShare is progressing steadily on its mission of empowering the world’s professionals through knowledge.
The LinkedIn experience was insightful… it has helped me connect the dots. I’ve always felt that it takes a combination of art and science to build a world class product. Startups are best at the art of creating something from nothing, but it takes a rigorous scientific approach to make the product high quality and scale it. Thats what LinkedIn taught me.
Looking back at the journey, there are things we got right and some others where we could have done better. I’ll share my key learnings in subsequent posts. Having built a company with the word “share” in its name, there’s one learning that stands tall over everything else – If you acquire some knowledge, don’t keep it to yourself. Share with others so they can benefit from it and improve on it… the ecosystem grows and some of that karma will flow back to you as a reward. To borrow a phrase – the real power of knowledge is the power to give it away.
I’ll take this opportunity to thank the super talented SlideShare team spread across two offices – San Francisco & New Delhi. There are changes going forward – SlideShare is getting consolidated into the San Francisco office. Not what the founders would have done, but LinkedIn is a large organization with its own structure and priorities – its best for SlideShare to fit into LinkedIn in a way that ensures its long term success.
Goodbye SlideShare! I’ll always be your most ardent evangelist… just that I’m no longer part of the team that’s building you.
What’s next for me – some plans are work-in-progress… will share when the appropriate time comes:) Stay tuned.