Scale Perception

Tim Brady had been working his ass off at Yahoo. He was wearing multiple hats, one of which was their PR guy. When Jeff Mallett joined Yahoo’s board, he took a look at the professionally bound PR kits Brady put together. “This is C+ work,” he said, passing Brady off. Mallett said, “If we’re going to appear big, we’d better act big… I know you’re working hard, but it’s not an excuse for putting out something that looks like a startup.” They started doing two red-eye cross-coast trips before each meeting. Same team, same day. This went on for 3-4 months straight. Finding the energy to double the work they were previously doing was a step up in effort and professionalism. Being everywhere all the time made Yahoo look bigger than it was.