Integrity is worth more than your career

Recently I started tweeting startup related quotes at the start of each day. This morning I read a quote by Ryan Freitas the founder of Second Verse. He is quoted as saying, “Your reputation is more important than you paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.”

The quote reminded me of a situation I found myself in just after I started LayerOne (my first venture backed startup). I was working for a telecom company called IXC (now owned by Level3) selling circuits. More often than not at IXC I would put together a deal only to see it delayed or canceled because we lacked access to local circuits or colocation space in our POP. I talked to one of my peers whose brother-in-law happened to be our manager about the problem. I figured we had lost more than a million dollars in revenue that quarter due to the issue.

I had an idea. There was an empty suite next to IXCs POP at 2323 Bryan Street in Dallas. What if we rented it and began offering interconnection and colocation to clients who we otherwise couldn’t sell to? Our manager explained the company would never do it for a hundred reasons. I then proposed that ‘we’ rent it – i.e. his son-in-law and me.

Shortly afterward, with the blessing of our manager, we formed a company and negotiated a deal to utilize the space. Fast forward a few months and I found myself in my boss’s boss’s office along with my business partner and a few of our other peers. He confronted us about the ‘side’ business asking who was involved. Unfortunately my manager was out of town so I’ll never know if he would have stepped forward to explain the situation. Instead I immediately stepped forward and admitted it was my idea. I tried to explain how it was helping us close more business, but he was fixated on how much additional money I was making on the side. I was caught flat footed and the points he was making were making a lot of sense.

He dropped the bomb that I was fired before I had a chance to finish my explanation. At the end of the day he was right. It was a conflict of interest and it wasn’t appropriate. I thought about saving my own ass by explaining I had the consent and approval of my manager. As I stood there listening to him drone on and on I wondered why my business partner wasn’t saying anything. Why didn’t he step forward and admit his part? It was at that moment that everything became clear.

Since I had not been directly asked I would not reveal the participation of my partner or the fact that I had the consent of my manager. I took the heat and accepted the fact that I was responsible for my own actions and my own decisions. As I packed my office my business partner stood in my office and thanked me for not revealing his involvement. When my manager finally returned and learned what happened he decided not to say anything, but explained his regret that he hadn’t been there to help. He never thanked me, but it was clear I had earned some of his respect. I later learned that one of the other salespeople had turned us/me in.

I decided to begin working on the side business full-time and bought out my partner. I couldn’t work with IXC anymore, but that was a blessing in the end because it forced me to begin working with other carriers. Five years later my little company had raised more than $30MM and was doing business with almost every carrier in the United States (even IXC). My old business partner left IXC and came to work for me as did my old manager – I even hired the salesperson that had reported me in the first place. In some strange way I figured I owed each of them for helping me take the leap that I may not have taken without their help.

At the end of the day I decided that my integrity was worth more than my job at IXC. The irony that it was an issue of integrity that caused me to lose my job in the first place is not lost on me.

Republished from Startupmuse.com

About the Author: Alexander Muse

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About Jason Myers

Jason Myers is the editor-in-chief of the Texas Entrepreneur Network and can be reached at jason@txenetworks.com