28
T
D
to a voice that he and his co-founders felt was being
neglected in mainstream media.
Blavity
has since gar-
nered three million active users, with more than 100
contributing writers from around the country.
“It’s because the barriers for entry are super low,”
says Jackson, mentioning that
Blavity
probably wouldn’t
have succeeded 10 years ago without the acceleration
of the Internet. “I fully believe that, if you have an
Internet connection and access to a computer, you
can really figure something out. It’s not easy, and it
will require work, but if you can get access, you can
become unstoppable.”
The Google Way
One of the most valuable brands in the world, Google
has long been viewed as the pioneer of tech companies
in the way it treats its employees, encouraging them to
lead healthy lives. Google has done this by recruiting
talent from some unlikely places – seeking out college
students and recent graduates whose diversity of
experiences and intelligence equate to a confidence that
breeds success. St. Paul’s alumni
Whitney McAniff ’08
,
Grier Stockman ’09
, and
James Isbell ’04
are among
that group.
McAniff graduated from college full of enthusiasm
in her search for a role that would allow her to “keep
learning.” Despite knowing that she wanted to dedicate
herself to teaching, she wasn’t quite ready to return to
the classroom. While running back-end store operations
for J. Crew, McAniff found working in retail a refreshing
way to continue learn-
ing while avoiding any
potential burnout of
traditional classroom
education. Google wasn’t
even on her mind as
she searched for life
after J. Crew. After a
friend encouraged her
to consider the company,
McAniff found that her
goal of constant learn-
ing meshed well with
the Google philosophy
of encouraging employees to assume new roles and avoid
stagnation. McAniff first worked directly with Sales
Googlers to ensure that ads didn’t go offline.
More recently, she has joined a 10-person global pilot at
Google, working on market efficiency for agency partners.
Before Google, McAniff knew nothing about the day-
to-day work of policy and billing, but after a couple
years of learning on the job, she feels strongly that the
most exciting aspect of working at Google is that she
can “have an almost infinite number of careers.”
Stockman’s path to Google mirrors McAniff’s in that
she hardly considered Google an option after college.
Recruited by a Brown graduate who returned to the
school to tout the benefits of the Google life, Stockman
found that she ultimately wanted to work at a company
whose values were aligned with her own. Accepting a
position as part of the sales team, Stockman ultimately
defines her role as relationship building. She works with
small businesses to help them “build their brand and
be more efficient” with the use of Google AdWords. The
opportunity to be part of a company that is redefining
corporate culture inspires her, she says, describing Google
as a place where fresh perspectives are highly valued
and reorganization happens frequently in an effort to
encourage employees to work smarter – not longer.
Google strives “to organize the world’s information
and make it accessible to the public,” says Stockman,
and “to allow the Internet to be democratized.”
The path of
James Isbell ’04
to Google began at the
consulting firm Oliver Wyman and included a yearlong
Fulbright grant to Indonesia. Transitioning from a small
consulting firm steeped in the pace and intensity of New
York City to a 15,000-person campus filled with bikers
and backpacks led Isbell to believe he had returned to
college. That is, until he found himself among some of
the country’s brightest M.B.A. holders. Isbell is also quick
to point out that despite the amenities on campus, work
takes precedence at Google. His diverse background,
much like McAniff’s and Stockman’s, has allowed him to
thrive at Google, where he serves as a financial analyst
for the company’s cloud platform.
Dropbox and LinkedIn –
Accelerated Growth
Glara Ahn ’06
was one of the first 100 employees
at
Dropbox, a file-hosting service that stores users’ docu-
ments, photos, and videos in the cloud for easy sharing
and collaboration across devices. Like many others who
ended up in San Francisco after graduating from college,
Ahn sought a “less traditional working environment,”
where her abilities would contribute to the company’s
growth and success in a clear, tangible way.
Having joined Dropbox in 2011 without an articulated
role, Ahn used her entrepreneurial spirit to create
experimental projects.
“We didn’t have any video material,” Ahn explains,
“We didn’t have a way to show what Dropbox was, or
Whitney McAniff ’08, Google
