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webvan
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Chris Macrae
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Nov 14, 2001 11:12 PST
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interesting?
http://www.fastcompany.com/roadshow/2001/100401.html
Anthony Parks, a founder of the now-defunct Webvan, explains how he helped
improve his community while building a cutting-edge business.
The Oakland CoF Roadshow event centered on a conversation with Anthony
Parks, one of the founders of Webvan. Anthony's story is interesting on
several levels. He was part of one of the dotcom boom and bust's most
volatile organizations. And as he helped build the business, he helped build
Oakland and improve the lives of his friends, family, and mentors by giving
them about 70% of his shares in the company.
Not everybody benefited from those gifts -- not everybody sold their stock
or sold when the stock was high -- but that act shows Anthony's commitment
to giving back to the community in which he grew up, lives, and works.
Anthony's now building R.E.A.L. Role Models Inc., a nonprofit foundation
that helps young people, especially black teenagers, discover career options
other than becoming a pro athlete or a movie star. Here's part of Anthony's
story -- and the Oakland CoF discussion.
How long have you lived in Oakland?
I grew up in East Oakland at 68th and Manhattan. I was raised by a single
parent who worked to put herself through cosmetology school. It wasn't
weird. I didn't feel as if my childhood was any different. Most of us were
raised by a single mother. I push back when someone wants to paint me as a
rags-to-riches poor black child.
My mother is my role model. She worked very hard to raise us. There was a
little violence. There was some crime. But there was a lot more community.
Back then, if I was on the streets, Mrs. Jones or whoever would hit me
upside the head if I got out of line -- and had my mother's blessing to do
so. It was a real community.
You mentioned the violence and crime in your neighborhood. How did you start
to develop the career path you're now on?
I got kicked out of grade school, and my mom put me and my brother in
Catholic school. That really changed my life and set me in another
direction. My junior year at Bishop O'Dowd High School, the most tragic
thing in my life happened. We had to leave our house to get away from this
guy my mom was dating -- a drug dealer, I don't know -- and we ended up in
Marin.
I ended up at Redwood High School, which had 3,000 whites and 7 black kids.
That was a real culture shock. I didn't have any problem with whites, but
back then, anyone who wasn't in your neighborhood was a problem. Because I
was in sports, I was pretty much accepted by my class and could move pretty
well between groups. I had to learn that this was my new world. This was my
new life.
What were some of your earliest lessons once you moved to Marin?
Be true to yourself. Have some goals. Those were things I didn't hear as a
kid on the street. I've always worked. I've always been entrepreneurial. I
was the only kid in eighth grade with three suits. I worked in the
restaurant business. I studied law enforcement at San Jose State University.
I fathered my daughter. Her mother and I weren't really together, and I had
to make the decision about whether I'd be a part of my daughter's life. I
dropped out of school and went back to work because I wanted to contribute.
That seems to be a common thread: working while contributing to the lives of
others. When did you start thinking about that?
My grandmother, who raised me, always talked about doing something for
others. What have you done to make someone's life better? That's what's
going to make your world better.
You mentioned working in the restaurant business. How did you move from that
to helping start Webvan?
In 1993, I'd spent seven years as the operations manager for a
multirestaurant business located in San Francisco. It was exactly what I
wanted to do -- contribute positively to a group effort. We'd grown that
company from one restaurant to seven restaurants, a luxury yacht, and a
catering company. We reached $14 million, and I had no formal training or
college degree.
I had the itch to do something else because it'd grown as big as it would
get. So I joined a little company called Starbucks. We only had 200 stores
at the time and only 3 in San Francisco. By 1994, I'd opened 28 stores in
San Francisco. I was part of the team that designed the cultural-awareness
program for Starbucks in 1995. The stores were not reflective of the
communities they went into. When Starbucks got to 1,000 stores, it was time
for me to leave.
What did you do next?
In 1995, I saw this thing called the Internet happening. I wanted to be part
of it. I knew that I had something to bring technology and that in the
e-commerce space, people were still going to want a quality customer-service
experience. I started an online customer-service consultancy and got
absolutely no clients. Then I was contacted by Louis Borders, founder of
Borders and creator of the framework for fuzzy logic. There were already
inventory systems, so if you bought a book, the book would be reordered. He
created a system that tracked the kinds of books that were sold, so more
books of that type would be ordered. That's why Borders always seems to have
the kinds of books you like.
How did that connection lead to the launch of Webvan?
Borders wanted to do something on the Net, something that had to do with
ordering groceries on the Web. I didn't think the idea would fly, but my
mother always told me about hanging with winners. So I decided to hang with
Borders to create intelligent systems for retail, which became Webvan --
what might be the most infamous bust in Web history.
Why did Webvan go bust?
The original concept was a technology play on the old milkman model. All the
funding institutions said that we weren't thinking big enough. Louis gave in
to the money because he had to. You have to give in to the money. We changed
the model, so it became this hub-and-spoke physical-distribution thing. I
ended up leaving because the founders are usually the first to go. To get
your shares, your accelerated vesting, and your package, you go quietly.
The guy who moved me out didn't know what he was doing and is the reason
Webvan didn't work. He was a former FedEx exec and thought we had to do
FedEx with groceries. That soured me to the corporate thing, but even more,
it educated me about sharing my vision with people. There's a lot of
selfishness in business. It'll bring down a lot of organizations. It's what
brought down Webvan. There were a lot of "I's," not enough "We's."
Before you left, though, you did something that wasn't selfish -- something
that many people building startups don't do. What was the motivation behind
giving away your shares in the company?
I had to take some time to get back to what my grandmother told me and what
my mother showed me. Before Webvan went public, I sat down and made a list
of people in my life whom I wanted to share my good fortune with. I gifted
out 68% of what I had. Webvan went public, and on the first day, the high
was $34 a share. I gifted something like $2.8 million to people.
When the Wall Street Journal called, I didn't want anybody to know what I
did. My grandmother told me that if you really want to feel good about
yourself, do something good for someone, and don't tell anybody. I'd always
known that whatever I did, I wanted to give back to people in my life. It
was nothing to me.
Why do you think giving away your shares attracted so much attention?
I didn't think it was that big a deal, but society did. The people in my
life are the reason why I got there. None of us has achieved anything on his
or her own. I have something the market can't take away. It wasn't about the
gift. It was the act.
How can others foster that kind of selflessness in their organizations?
Start with yourself, and fight for it. It would obviously help if the chief
decision makers also feel the way you do, but there aren't a lot of
environments like that.
What are you working on now?
My foundation, R.E.A.L. Role Models, focuses on diversity awareness for
kids.
Coordinates: Oakland Art Gallery, 510-637-0395; R.E.A.L. Role Models,
http://www.bereal.org
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