CEO's "Get Rich Quietly" Advice

Codie shares a story about career advice she received from a CEO that she ultimately decided not to follow.

"I was with a CEO of a company that I worked for back in the day, and I was starting to do a little stuff online. This was like 6 or 7 years ago. I remember he took me on a walk on the beach at the Montage in California, and he said, 'The thing is, Codie, we get rich quietly here. We don't build the I, we build the me.'

At the time, I didn't really like that answer. In my self-righteousness, I thought, 'Well, he doesn't get it. The internet's going to be so powerful.' I believed that steak dinners and strippers, which is how a lot of people in finance raise money, doesn't work and isn't going to work in the future. I thought we should actually build a media presence.

But I realized quickly that he had built a multibillion-dollar business. It was his, I was playing with his chips, so he had every right to say, 'Hey, no, not on my dime.' At that point, I realized that what I actually like doing is watching other people grow and build based on the ideas I share with them."