I don't know how well known Rand or Moz are on here, but it's great to see this posted.<p>I feel like SEO has been an area that gets looked down upon from certain sectors. In the 10+ years that Rand built up the company, the industry changed a lot - and he's been a voice for consistently doing things authentically and in a way that makes the internet better.<p>You'd also be hard pressed to find anyone who has been so transparent in sharing everything they've learned along the way - a LOT of folks in digital marketing began learning from his blog posts and videos.<p>I'm pretty excited for all his next ventures, and looking forward to the book for his take on advice for startup founders.<p>Plus, the 'safer-events project' is in response to incidents that one would hope no one has to experience again.<p>(And despite some harder times, Moz seems to be on the up again; they have some top-class products, should have some interesting new tools over the coming year.)<p>Good luck to Rand and SparkToro!
Rand has been an inspiration way before the topics of honesty and empathy were trendy.<p>He was the spark that ignited my interest towards getting out of the usual "let's not discuss difficult topics", and as usual his post is a fantastic example of how to be honest without being a jerk.<p>Aside from this, it's great to see him on a different journey, although I'm sure leaving Moz must've been hard.
When I was at a company that one of the founders departed from a few years back, one of the generous gestures the remaining founder offered was to keep the departing founder's email address alive "forever" (I left a few years later, not sure how long that was).<p>A simple gesture that cost the company near nothing and acknowledged the long history of the departing founder.<p>I don't know if Rand asked, but it seems a simple item to offer.
Say what you will about Rand, but he is a terribly good writer - and man is that guy productive.<p>Honest question: How can you get basically fired [1] as an employee while still being the chairperson.<p>[1] The message is cryptic, but I read it that way. Here is the quote: „On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is “fired and escorted out of the building by security” and 10 is “left entirely of his own accord on wonderful terms,” my departure is around a 4. That makes today a hard one, cognitively and emotionally. I have a lot of sadness, a heap of regrets, and a smattering of resentment too.„
Rand has been a huge influence on thousands of people, and if you ever launched something on the web, at some point you must have used their tool for a reason or another. Personally I really loved the way he explained complex things with his whiteboard in those weekly videos. These are great starter points to understand the heavy cog of SEO world. I don't know how many times I directed people to their blog for self-study/research etc. I am sure their success wasn't due just to him, but also an incredible team of people with him, but he was the face of the company at Moz until now - I wish him well!<p>Weird that in his goodbye piece he says he did not leave entirely of his own accord:
> "On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is “fired and escorted out of the building by security” and 10 is “left entirely of his own accord on wonderful terms,” my departure is around a 4...”
That is something that the piece doesn't answer, probably something going on, but he still has major shares and influence in the company i am sure!
I can't help but be curious of his leaving circumstances.<p>>>> On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is “fired and escorted out of the building by security” and 10 is “left entirely of his own accord on wonderful terms,” my departure is around a 4.
Moz /= Mozilla was a click bait for me, if I'll be honest.<p>I know there's nothing that can be done. Tagging [Not Mozilla] would be stupid.