How to choose a company to work for: find the wave, then the founders

Arabs, and Sudanese people especially, have a habit, Aziz says: we want to work for the biggest companies. Parents are proud of a job at a famous bank or telecoms company. His observation is simple. No employee has built wealth for the generations after them from a salary. The people who do either found the company or know how to find the people who will build the big companies of the future.

Aziz joined companies when they were small or mid-sized and watched them grow, more than once. One was PhotoBox in the UK. He went in on a six-month contract covering a maternity leave, when it had around sixty staff, decided he had to stay, and found a way. He took on responsibilities across its international markets, and by the time he left four or five years later, he says, it was worth around £500 million. In 2014 City A.M. reported that the Moonpig owner was preparing a London listing that could value it at up to £500m.

"I'd rather be something important and big in a small or mid-sized company, and the company grows."

A small company usually pays less. But if you join early you can negotiate a share, often tied to performance, and it adds to your pay as the company grows. Promotion also tends to come from inside.

His examples are American. Susan Wojcicki rented her garage to two young men, watched them working morning and night, and brought them tea and coffee. They were Google's founders. According to PBS, she rented them the garage in 1998 and joined Google as its marketing manager in 1999, leaving a big-company job. When you join a small company that spreads, Aziz says, you spread with it.

Steve Ballmer, who went on to run Microsoft, made a fortune because he joined early. Aziz puts him as the 24th employee; the University of Washington records that he joined in 1980 as the 30th.

The usual case for a big employer is stability, with a little status attached. Aziz sees two problems. First, the stability our parents and grandparents had is over. A big company in trouble lays people off, and you are a number in a spreadsheet. The old loyalty between company and employee has gone too.

The second problem is internal: the company name becoming the thing you are proud of. Some people are made to be employees and are content. But if you listen to a business podcast every week, he says, you probably want more, so think about where you want to get to.

In a big company you get one defined piece: customer service on Facebook Messenger, say, answering within three minutes from a script. Aziz calls it routine work anyone can be trained to do, and AI will start with exactly these jobs, because it needs no lunch break, no coffee and no sleep. Two years in, you have learned to take orders and carry them out.

In a growing small company, the real job description is: hit the target. You end up in marketing, customer service, accounts and sales whether you planned to or not, and you learn an extraordinary amount. And your opinion counts, because the founders listen.

He sees it from the hiring side too. Five years at a big telecoms company does not impress him, although he has worked in telecoms himself. Two years at a small company someone helped grow interests him more. A big name can open the door, but stories of growth are what set a CV apart.

Aziz thinks in waves: shifts that move through the whole world. In his day it was the internet, so he went straight from university into an internet company, and it paid off. Understand the waves in your field, then look for the companies riding them.

More important than the company is who founded it. Have they built anything before? Some people talk well and cannot execute. His example is PayPal, which eBay bought in October 2002 in a deal valued at about $1.5 billion. Many of its early team went on to found companies including YouTube, Yelp, Palantir and SpaceX.

The agency applies the same test. When it began working with Sudanese clients, Aziz started researching each company's founders and history before taking the work on. He says it did not go ahead with around 60% of those who approached it after that research. There is more about Cush Digital and how it works.

His advice to job seekers is the same: research the people. In an interview you are assessing them as much as they are assessing you. If they say they want to be the biggest company in the market, ask whether they have done it before, or whether it is just talk. You do not want to board a ship that is going to sink.

Sudanese people, and Arabs generally, Aziz says, are embarrassed to say they joined a company that failed, or turned down a big company in Saudi Arabia for a small one, because they worry what people will say. That knot holds you back. Failure is part of any career.

Once you have researched the company, its founders and its market, he reminds listeners how istikhara, the prayer for guidance, is meant to work: decide first, then pray, rather than praying and waiting for a dream. Then join and give it everything. Clocking off at five ends when you join a small company. As it grows, you grow. For how AI is changing these choices, see the episode on whether AI will replace jobs.