The RealReal founder Julie Wainwright has a startling new memoir

Summary

Julie Wainwright has taken two companies public, a pretty incredible feat by any standard. Yet in her new memoir, Time to Get Real, she offers readers something even more valuable: a blunt look at the messy realities of leadership. Wainwright shares the kinds of tough truths that many high-achieving CEOs can relate to but rarely discuss publicly, including the aftermath of what many would consider her first major setback, which was shutting down Pets.com during the 2000 market crash. If you’re of a certain age, you definitely remember it. The online pet supplies startup had become instantly recognizable thanks to its memorable sock puppet mascot and catchy slogan, “Because pets can’t drive.” But what seemed like just a fleeting moment in the dot-com bubble’s burst would cast a shadow over Wainwright’s career for nearly a decade. “When I would talk to recruiters, it was like, ‘No one’s going to hire you anymore,’” Wainwright said in an interview with this editor earlier this week. It came as a shock, given that Wainwright’s career trajectory initially seemed unstoppable. After cutting her teeth at Clorox, she rose through tech companies in the ‘90s when female leadership in the sector was exceedingly rare. As CEO of Berkeley Systems and later the online video store Reel.com, she worked “tons of hours” but was happy and, by her telling, succeeding, including growing Reel.com’s revenue from $3 million to $25 million — a time during which the company was sold to Hollywood Video. “I just operated better without a boss,” she said. Then came the collapse that would have permanently derailed many careers. In 2000, Wainwright took Pets.com public, only to shut it down later that same year during the dot-com bubble burst. The professional blow was exacerbated by a personal one: she says that on the very same day she informed employees of the company’s closure, her husband asked for a divorce. “My work is gone, I’m getting a divorce, and I don’t have children,” Wainwright, the...