Get partners

Make sure people have your back. You need a minimum of 3-4 people in your court to have a strong enterprise career. It’s not just about cultivating a great team around you (that’s a given). It is also about fucking with the right partners.

So – what is the mix of people you should be fucking with?

• Peer/confidant – I highly recommend you get this person outside of your company or if they are in your company outside of your department – the farther apart your shared reporting chain, the better. People are mostly wonderful but don’t put yourself (and them) in a position where your issues and thoughts could have any ethical impacts on them.
• Sponsor – Friends in high places are critical to success. Become indispensable. Look for ways to make their lives easier. If you don’t know how to make their lives easier, you have bigger fucking problems. Go learn about how your own business works. Make sure you understand exactly what makes your leaders win, and deliver that.
• Vendor – Unless you are going to develop cutting edge technology from within an enterprise*, get a friend who is a vendor or a conduit to many vendors (like an incubator or in worst cases an analyst).
  

*actually, some large companies legitimately do build great technology, but often feed money into a small group of talented people that operate very differently from the rest of the company)