"Go after the hard, messy challenges." When you’re no longer on the edge of your seat, when you’re no longer learning very fast, it’s time to move on professionally, according to Jeff Holden, senior vice president for product management at Groupon. Holden offered this and other advice as the Dean’s Distinguished Leadership Lecture in September 2012.
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"Go after the hard, messy challenges." When you’re no longer on the edge of your seat, when you’re no longer learning very fast, it’s time to move on professionally, according to Jeff Holden, senior vice president for product management at Groupon. Holden offered this and other advice as the Dean’s Distinguished Leadership Lecture in September 2012.
Jeff Holden
Jeff Holden
After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Illinois’ computer science department, Holden spent five years at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co. He was building algorithmic trading strategies at Shaw with none other than Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com.
“Surround yourself with people who make you feel stupid,” he advised. “When making big decisions, optimize for regret minimization -- don’t let momentum carry the day.”
Holden followed both pieces of his own advice. He ultimately followed Bezos to Amazon, and then struck out on his own to form the mobile technology company Pelago.
Pelago was purchased by Groupon in 2011. At Groupon, he’s now helping the company evolve into “the world’s commerce operating system”— the prospect of transforming local commerce to be as efficient as stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. Groupon has built a massive local marketplace that brings together over 170 million consumers and more than 250,000 merchants, much as exchanges bring together buyers and sellers of securities. The GrouponOS will ultimately enable businesses to automatically maximize their profits and build rich and long-lasting relationships with their customers, freeing up merchants from many of the worries of marketing and operations to focus on their craft.
It’s no small challenge, but that’s something Holden has always sought out.
“Be bold: go after the hard, messy challenges. That’s where you’ll find the big returns, the opportunities to change the world. Most people will shy away from these intimidating problems, leaving the bold and truly entrepreneurial to earn the big rewards,” Holden said during the lecture. _______________________
Writer:Bill Bell, College of Engineering, 217/265-5102.
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