Finding your people. When I was 23 I was living in San…
By: Eade Bengard
Tags: Career Change, Journaling, On Deck, Autobiographical, Connection

When I was 23 I was living in San Francisco. There were a handful of days that year it was raining unusually hard — so hard that the city lost power in a few areas. I was told not to go into the office, so I ended up walking in the rain to Pinecrest Diner to work. It was a modest spot with San Francsico lore. Supposedly a waitress was once shot and killed there by a cook after they argued about poached eggs.

I sat in one of the old vinyl booths, a table away from a guy who looked maybe 15 or 20 years older than me. He was also sitting alone. There was something about the dreariness of the day that made me think that even as strangers we both shouldn’t be sitting there not acknowledging each other at all. So we started talking. His name was Kevin Saul and he was a general counsel at Apple.

It took me a while to piece together that he was dying. He spoke warmly about his sons who played soccer. He talked about architecture, creative work, and philosophy. He talked about his time at Apple, and how I should be careful in my career because he thought consistent stress can kill people.

I think everyone has their people in life. People who click with them, help them, or even just believe in them. As I sat there for over an hour chatting with him, I felt like he was one of my people even though I knew it was in passing. At the end of the conversation, he told me that I was the kind of person that Apple likes to hire. And he offered to put me in touch with the executive creative director there, Hiroki. It was the last time I saw him.

A few days later I received an email intro to Hiroki, and I had an hour long 1:1 with an executive at Apple whose time was particularly guarded. After the meeting, I spent all weekend rewriting one of their ads to prove I could create the kind of work that belonged there. I didn’t end up with an offer, but the recruiter ended up connecting me with an agency that I worked at for a while.

After a series of chain reactions, the Apple offer I wanted came two years later. When I got it I couldn’t tell Kevin about it, but he was the first person I thought about.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about connections and the serendipity they require. You have to be in the same place, you have to find personalities that click. And you have to be open to connecting in the first place.

After 7 years from that encounter, the connections I made and roles I took landed me at a company called On Deck. There was a lot of serendipity leading up to it, too much to mention here. But what interests me most about it is that it’s a company that’s designed to take some of the serendipity out of the equation. And I mean that in the best way possible: more faces, more people you click with, more conversations that leave you feeling energized or excited about the future.

There’s not much else that determines your life than the people in it. Your people are everything. And there are a lot of them you haven’t met yet, living in different cities or hanging in circles that haven’t quite overlapped. They are people who align with your values, want to start companies with you, want to be convinced to start companies, want to teach you something about the industry you share, or even want to invest in you. They’re people who know they can light a hundred candles and still stay lit themselves.

I’m here now because I believe at On Deck we can help you find them.