How I navigated my biggest career transition

One year after exiting my role as Google’s Chief Decision Scientist

Exactly one year ago today, I left my position as Google’s Chief Decision Scientist to venture out into the Great Unknown on my own. (Here’s the blog post I wrote about it last year.)

Since we love simple narratives, most people won’t tell you the truth about their leaps. You only get the tweet-length scrubbed down version that’s all squeaky clean with hindsight bias and survivorship bias.

• Hindsight bias: the “I knew it all along” effect. Hindsight is 20/20.
• Survivorship bias: you’ll learn the wrong lessons when the loudest voices are the success stories and you rarely hear from the failures.

So, here’s an attempt at a more truthful update.

Your author.

First of all, did I have a plan as I was leaving Google? Absolutely! Are you kidding? Of course I had a plan. I had plans within plans. I’d been planning my exit for over a year.

Is having a plan the same as knowing where you’re going? Not always.

Is having a plan the same as knowing where you’re going? Not always. And certainly not in my case.