Every now and then, a very talented employee walks into Bob Knowling’s office at Covad, the high-flying Internet services company where Knowling is CEO. The employee settles in his chair and smiles. Knowling smiles back. There is little tension, little acrimony. Both know what’s coming. The employee wants out. He’s bored, needs a new challenge. Or maybe he just needs to rest, see his kids again. In the history of business, these are hardly new excuses for quitting. What is new is how often they’re being proffered these days—because they can be. The employees who regularly stop into Knowling’s office, like legions of others in the new economy, happen to be millionaires. They don’t have to work—and their money changes everything.
A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2000 issue of Harvard Business Review.
