One of the important decisions for anyone in any job is when to go. Almost nobody can predict his potential trajectory in an organization or, for that matter, the prospects for the organization itself. These decisions are hard, very hard. Many people look back with regret.
It is interesting to watch how prominent people decide when to go. In the last couple weeks, we have seen a couple of them, and their stories deserve a look.
Derek Jeter
After 20 years as shortstop for the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter played his final game the other day. He is 40 years old and past his prime playing years, but his decision to quit was his alone.
No one knows whether his focus, balance and modesty were inborn or taught him by his parents, but they informed his career. Along with the Yankees' similarly minded reliever Mariano Rivera and catcher Jorge Posada, he led the team to five World Series championships. No drama, just steady solid performance.
The last Yankees' championship was in 2009, and the team will be in a rebuilding mode for at least several years. Jeter, a natural leader respected by his teammates, could have been valuable as new players joined the Yankee system.
He declined. He said he'd played enough and was ready to quit. He meant it.
I am not a Yankees fan, or even a baseball fan, but it is impossible not to admire the guy.
In his last game in New York, Jeter hit a single in the bottom of the ninth that drove home the winning run. A nice way to finish.
Bill Gross
In 1971, Bill Gross cofounded Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco) a bond investment company that had a remarkably successful run, outperforming its rivals year after year after year.
Currently Pimco has almost $2 billion under management, but performance of its Total Investment Return Fund, the world's biggest bond fund at $2.3 billion and managed by Gross, has fallen off in recent years.
Gross, Pimco's chief investment officer, had smart, successful strategies over many years, but he was believed to have lost some mojo in recent years as bond yields have held very low and the U.S. Federal Reserve has flooded the economy with cash to maintain low rates in a period of low growth.
As the Total Investment Return Fund's performance declined, Gross' personality, difficult even in the good times, grew to be more of an issue within the firm. Pimco employees are generally regarded as hard-working and talented, but they often have been said to find the firm an unpleasant place to work.
(I just looked Pimco up on an employee-evaluation site. One comment earlier this month came from an employee who said, "very political in ways -- must be part of the group mentality -- some ways like cliques in HS or college." Only 34 percent of the Pimco employees said they would recommend the firm to a friend. Overall rating was 2.1 on a five-point scale.)
In-house drama has increased this year, with Gross' hand-picked successor, CEO Mohamed A. El-Erian, leaving Pimco after public arguments with Gross.
In addition, investors had been pulling money out of Pimco's Total Investment Return Fund for the last 16 months, including $25 billion in 2014 alone.
Later in the summer, it was revealed that a group of Pimco fund managers had threatened to quit if Gross did not leave.
For Gross, 70 years old and worth an estimated $2 billion, the decision came down to this: Wait to be shoved out, jump or retire.
He chose to jump, joining Janus Capital to run its new, tiny, Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, where his position at the helm is expected to draw many more investors. Janus stock rose 48 percent on the day of the Gross announcement. Allianz A.G., a 70 percent owner of Pimco, saw its stock drop.
Finance isn't like professional sports -- there isn't necessarily an inevitable age-related decline in skills. But maybe sometimes there is, and maybe this is what has happened to Bill Gross. He shows no inclination to leave the field. He's got something to prove, and he means to prove it.
We'll see.
Below is a video of one of Derek Jeter's most famous plays. It's called the Flip.
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