The Gift of Rejection

A strong No is better than a weak Yes

 
Strike 1!

“Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life’s next adventure.”

— Brian Acton

Strike 2!

“Got denied by Twitter HQ. That’s ok. Would have been a long commute.”

— Brian Acton

Most people would experience back-to-back job interview rejections like that and feel pretty discouraged. Who knows? Maybe Brian felt pretty down on those days.

However, those rejections were an incredible gift. Brian left his engineering job at Yahoo earlier in 2009 and interviewed with Twitter and Facebook, but both companies rejected him. So, he decided to partner with Jan Koum to start WhatsApp.

Five years later, Facebook agreed to acquire WhatsApp for $16B. Yes, $16 billion with a B. The deal left Brian worth over $3B. Not bad for someone who failed his job interview at Facebook five years earlier, huh?

So, Brian had missed the opportunity to join Facebook as an engineer and make a few million dollars. Heck, the stock may have made him worth tens of millions later. Ok, let’s be even more generous. Hundreds of millions.

However, the gift of their rejection was worth so much more. Billions more. I’m guessing that Brian looks back on that job interview and thanks his lucky stars that it didn’t work out.

There are so many more stories like this about the silver lining of rejection. For example:

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