My plans

I’ve been enjoying my summer working at Rapleaf a lot. So much, in fact, that it’s changed my plans for next year – so I wanted to let you all know.

Rapleaf is a data analytics company that compiles information about people from public sources on the internet. When you do a search for someone on there, it pulls together different public profiles about them (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) and builds an aggregate profile of their digital footprint. It basically collects the information that someone could find doing a 15 minute Google search, and puts all of that in one location. Our clients use this information to better understand their customer base – so they can find out about the demographics and psychographic interests of their users. This has a lot of applications to marketing, fraud prevention, recruiting, etc. – and the company is growing really quickly.

There are 20 people in the office, several of which had interns this summer. I was the CEO’s intern, so I reported to him, went with him to meetings, and worked closely with him. The CEO is one of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, and I have been learning a lot from him. A couple weeks ago, he approached me about staying on after the summer. He gave me a great offer to basically be his right-hand man for a year, in a position called Head of Special Projects. My job is to run projects that don’t fit naturally within other people’s roles – so basically, as new business ideas come in to the company, I will be responsible for testing them out and taking them to a point where the company decides whether or not it’s worth allocating more resources to it. So, it’s a position where I would learn a ton, think holistically about the company, and work very closely with a well-respected CEO.

I took the offer, and I am deferring Stanford GSB for a year – so I will get to enjoy San Francisco longer and explore the new opportunity!