Fourteen years ago this month, I started at Razorfish because Paul do Forno foun
By Jasongoldberg · October 18, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Fourteen years ago this month, I started at Razorfish because Paul do Forno found me on Twitter. (That was at least my second job that came directly from social media, which was unusual back then.)
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That makes this my 14th anniversary at Publicis Groupe, and I honestly don't know where the time went. It feels like about four years.
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The career advice I give most often comes from having been on both sides. Before agency life, I got to work directly for great retailers. There's nothing like putting the logo on, facing a stubborn business problem, and actually being the one who pushes the button on the fix. You own the result, and you learn as much from the launches that flopped as from the ones that worked.
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Working for a marketing partner like Publicis is special in a different way. I get to work with a lot of different brands at once, each with its own business challenges, its own strengths and weaknesses, and its own right to win. Almost every week something surprises me: a problem I haven't seen before, or an opportunity nobody saw coming. And I get to learn every day from the smartest coworkers and clients in the world.
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So my advice is to do both if you can. The operator seat teaches you what it really costs to ship something. The partner seat teaches you pattern recognition across a whole industry. Each one makes you better at the other. Plenty of brand-side hiring managers would push back on that, and they have a point: it's easier to talk a good game when you're not the one pushing the button. That's exactly why the operator years matter.
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Mostly, though, I'm grateful for the coworkers who became friends. My travel companions, fantasy football rivals, parenting advisors, therapists, cheerleaders, mentors and drinking buddies all started out as teammates on some project. That's the part of the last 14 years I didn't see coming, and it's the part I'm most thankful for.
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Thank you, Paul, for that first message. And thank you to everyone at Publicis who made these 14 years go by this fast.
Pete Stein Shannon Denton Patrick Frend W. Joe DeMiero Ros King Chris Davey Alda Abbracciamento Talia Raviv Amy Worcester Lanzi Helen Lin Richard Hearn Bob Lord Jem Ripley Robert Rivenburgh Scott Sorokin