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November 1, 1999

New-Media Companies Come Calling
Dot-coms are on the prowl for it talent, and that's changing the career landscape

By Teri Robinson

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nternet startups are having a giant ripple effect on the IT career landscape. New-media companies-particularly those on the verge of rounding up additional financing or making an initial public offering-are aggressively on the prowl for talented leadership that can turn dot-com dreams and promises into reality and lend credibility to the company's business plan.

Every month, for example, chief technology officer Mark Powers receives two or three calls from headhunters looking to port his in-demand IT talents to some up-and-coming Internet company. But Powers, who has more than a decade of experience in IT management, spurns those advances, because he already has a sweet deal with a new-media company-Pseudo Programs Inc. in New York.

What lured Powers to the online TV network from a technology consulting firm in Cincinnati was not just Pseudo's attractive compensation package-which included a generous base salary and what he terms a "decent number of shares" in the company created by Josh Harris, the founder of online research firm Jupiter Communications Corp. Rather, the 37-year-old Powers was also attracted by the "soft stuff" he was able to negotiate: a four-day work week that lets him maintain his home in Cincinnati and still show up for work in New York when needed.

Best of all, Powers says, he can again team up with a trusted business partner, Pseudo CEO Lawrence Lux, with whom he has worked on three previous ventures. "The only reason I agreed to come out here is that I trust Larry and think that Pseudo is the right opportunity," Powers says. He first worked with Lux in 1991 at Cincinnati Bell Directory Services and later in creating National Geographic Interactive.

Lux could guarantee Powers one more thing he didn't think he could find in a more-traditional IT department: an exciting technical project that requires a creative approach and the potential to influence the company's future. "For me, it's a fun technical problem, streaming video to thousands of people," Powers says. "I can't have a job I'm not interested in."

While the arrangements may seem unorthodox, Power's requirements and outlook toward his IT career are increasingly common.

Despite some lingering stereotypes about Internet-whiz-kids-cum-CEOs, finding talent today "is no longer about kids Rollerblading down the hall," says Randy Schoenfeld, co-founder of Redwood Partners, a new-media recruiting firm in New York's Silicon Alley. What he's looking for are "people with visibility" and experience.

Scott Dinsdale has just that sort of high visibility. Dinsdale, 41, recently left the CIO position at music giant BMG Entertainment in New York after 5-1/2 years for the executive VP/CTO post at MusicNow Network in Los Angeles. But Dinsdale didn't have to move out West to snare the job. "I had offers coming left, right, and center," says Dinsdale, who stayed put until just the right offer came along. Dinsdale jumped at the chance to lead an innovative music initiative over the Web.

At MusicNow's Firstlook.com Inc., for instance, users can sample songs online even before they hit the music-store shelves, and the position gives him an outlet for his entrepreneurial leanings.

As Powers and Dinsdale have found, many IT candidates can call the shots these days at new-media as well as more-traditional firms. "It's absolutely a good field to be in," Powers says.

Adds Dinsdale: "There is no lack of enthusiasm in the market for experienced IT people." Witness the exodus of several key IT executives to E-business companies earlier this year. Maynard Webb left the CIO position at Gateway Inc. to become president of eBay Technologies Inc., and Ken Harris ended a 16-month stint as Nike Corp.'s CIO to join clothes retailer Gap Inc. (Aug. 16, p. 18).

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