About

Employee Evolution launched in March 2007. At the time, I was working in Washington D.C. as a Financial Consultant with IBM. They had me staffed on a project at the Pentagon. It was a good first job. I worked with great people, I lived in the nation’s capital and I took the metro to one of the most famous buildings in the world every morning. But I was always searching for more.

Since college I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I devoured business books, I dreamed up ideas, and I even created my own major called Entrepreneurship. Eventually I backed out on the major and settled on a business degree, but I never stopped dreaming about starting a business and changing the world.

When Ryan Paugh and I started Employee Evolution in March 2007, it was a fun little side project. With all the talk of how terrible our generation was, we wanted to create a place for Generation Y to talk directly to corporate America. We blogged nearly every day of the week, and we installed our first social feature that let anyone sign up for the site and submit blog posts.

Before we knew it, the site took off. We had interview requests from the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and countless HR outlets across the country. When 60 Minutes came calling for a nationally televised interview, we knew it was time to take Employee Evolution full time.

After a whirlwind 6 months of blogging and a month of negotiations, we partnered with Penelope Trunk to start Brazen Careerist, Inc. I left IBM and moved to Madison, WI to work out of my apartment and nearly freeze to death.

Today, I am the COO of Brazen Careerist. We have 10 amazing full time employees, a host of talented freelance staff and thousands of devoted members. Ryan Paugh is our Director of Community, but has since moved to his own blog at ryanpaugh.com. You should check it out when you have a chance.

Personally, I have an amazing girlfriend, Rebecca, who lives here in Madison. We met on Employee Evolution, and of course, she has a blog too. It’s much better than mine, so you should give it a read. I also keep in constant contact with my family back in Connecticut. Since day one they have guided me and pushed me to be the best person I can be. I owe them everything, and one day I’ll give it to them.

I’ve learned countless lessons since graduating from Penn State a few short years ago. The most important being: