Sarah Friar? What’s going on?
Right now Sarah Friar is famous and admired (by me as well). She could have become the CEO of any major growth company that was looking for a new CEO. Instead the decision she made makes me wonder about Sarah’s judgment. I went to the website for that company she’s joining. It seems a piddling little company with a 10th of the promise of Square. Even with her as CEO it doesn’t seem it has anywhere significant to go. Go and look for yourself.
Two years from now if you ask, “Who is Sarah Friar?” the answer will be a blank look, and then “Oh yeah, she used to be the CEO of Square. I wonder what happened to her.”
I looked further into her background and saw that she held responsible major positions at Goldman, then was Senior Vice President, Finance & Strategy at Salesforce. Then her CFO position at Square. What is someone with that background doing, taking a job at a no-name neighborhood organization company? It makes no sense at all.
In her presentations she has glowed with happiness and pride about Square. It’s hard to say that she was unhappy with that job. The only explanation I can see is that this is kind of a semi retirement for her. I googled an estimation of her net worth back in April and it was $57 million (more now). She obviously likes her current job and admires her current boss, but maybe enough is enough, and it’s time to live more simply. She’s only 45 though, so however I look at it this job choice makes no sense.
Saul