I have a chip on my shoulder. Or as a friend once told me, I have chips on both shoulders which makes me well balanced. 

During my first year as a junior associate at a venture firm in Salt Lake City I was invited, by the partners of the firm, to join a lunch. A Silicon Valley law firm had just opened up shop in town and they wanted to treat us to a meal to see if we had any business to send their way. The partners of this law firm were very well pedigreed and very accomplished and total jerks.

Throughout the lunch they treated me, the junior member of the team, like persona non grata. I would ask a question, it would be ignored. I would make a comment, it wouldn’t be acknowledged. I would make suggestions for companies they should be talking to, they would brush them off. Not once during the course of the lunch did they make eye contact with me. It was clear that I was the junior guy and they were there to get facetime with the partners. I felt belittled and kind of humiliated.

On the flip side, as a junior member of the team, I also know how great it felt to get the ear of someone much more senior or experienced than me. It meant so much to that someone for whom I had very little to offer would take time out for me. To listen. To advise. To help.

Mark Suster had a great post up today on a new investment he made. In the post he talks about how he got to know the founder. Turns out he was a junior member at a venture fund just like I was. As Mark explains:

Dustin was junior but I’m not hierarchic so we spent a bunch of time together. 

That line took me back to my days as a junior member of a team. When I didn’t have anything to offer anybody. But there were some, like Mark did with Dustin, who took me under their wings. Who invested time in me. Who believed in me when they had nothing to gain from doing so. I attribute much of the path I’m on today to those people who believed in me when I was just a  scrappy junior kid at a small town VC firm.

Everyone has been made to feel small and junior at different points in their careers. Everyone pays their dues. I try my best to never forget that. To extend a hand where I can and to keep that scrappy junior kid in me close to the surface.

As for that law firm who’s partners treated me so poorly over lunch? Its been 10 years and I’ve never done business with them. Told you those chips on my shoulders keep me well balanced.