Staff Spotlight: $SGonzalez

The Staff Spotlight Interview!

Welcome to the Staff Spotlight, a new ongoing featured interview series! The purpose of this series is to not only provide an entertaining interview, but to also bring some light to some of the lesser known faces who help run things behind the scenes. As the community grows, so does the staff, and we want to let you get a chance to get to know some of these people who you may not ordinarily run into while out and about in the community!

About Steven Gonzalez

Hailing originally from the boogie down Bronx is the one the only, Steven Gonzalez, who holds the lofty position of Vice President of Business Development, or as I like to fondly refer to him, The Suit. In all seriousness, Steven is a far cry from a ìsuitî and is an interesting guy. I can think of no better fit for a position like this and he has been a lot of fun to work with.


Job wise, he oversees making sure the site can bring in enough money to keep up with the growing costs of maintaining it, all the while not sacrificing the community in the process. And what sets Steven apart from most guys who would fill this position, is that he is truly into the community aspect of the site, and finds it to be a fascinating world. He has been involved in some pretty big projects since arriving here, and has had some pretty serious impact on the community in that respect. And up till now most of you guys probably had no idea who he even is let alone what he has contributed. Well, now is your chance to find out, and he can describe what he does much better than I, so read on!

$SGonzalez Interviewed!

Lolly asks the tough questions...

So, what was it like going from growing up in the Bronx, where pasty white people like myself were a rare commodity, to ending up being granted a scholarship in the 8th grade to attend Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, which was filled with a lot of us pasty white folk?

Generally speaking, moving from one specific culture and socio-economic environment to another can be a traumatic experience. Couple that with leaving home at age 14, the natural feelings of homesickness, etc and things could be have been hard. And I know plenty of people from my time at Exeter who had difficulty with similar transitions - be they from inner city environments, foreign countries or any of the other places where people grow up.  All that being said, Exeter for me was fantastic, opened my eyes to the world and imbued me with a sense of confidence and self worth that I still carry today.  I think I walked into that environment with my eyes wide open, willing to meet and interact with anyone, under whatever circumstances.

What was the student body like and what did you do to deal with the culture shock of going from the urban home of hip hop to the woods of New Hampshire?

Student body was smart, diverse and like any other school, had geeks, jocks, rockers and punks. Upon arrival I was fortunate enough to make friends with a group of guys who are still my best friends today.  And to provide an example of diversity, my core group of friends can be described as follows: Mixed Race (Black/White), Mixed Race (Lebanese/Italian), Jewish, Korean and me, Puerto Rican.  I mean, its like the UN - with a couple of mutts thrown in for good measure!!  Re: culture shock, some people say ignorance is bliss in the right situation and I think I was blissfully indifferent to this new socio-economic environment - for me it was about - do I like you?  Are you fun to hang with?  If so, great!  I don't care who you are and where you're from.  It's about who we actually are, not about the stereotypes we are supposed to represent.  Of course, I didn't know that then - I just acted that way.  

Also, what is wrong cake?

Ancient Chinese secret!

Phillips Exeter has some interesting teaching methods that seem a far cry from the standard book learning of the average high school. They use a method known as the Harkness plan involving literal round table discussion. Can you tell us what this was like?

The Harkness system is very powerful.  You can't hide in class, because you all sit at a round table, and the focus is on discussion and debate, as opposed to being told this is the right way and this is wrong way.  Take a math class for example, the teacher would pose a problem to the class and the goal was to discuss how to solve it, what were the merits or downfalls or certain solutions over others.  It wasn't about "this is the only way."  It was more about, choose your way, but you better be able to back up what you say or else someone is gonna call you out and show why their solution might be better.  It forced you to think creatively and to learn how to have critical discourse and debate.  As a result, I oftentimes find myself disagreeing with people, if only to disagree and create a ruckus.

After Exeter, you ended up at the home of the Fighting Bantams, aka Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. What did you focus on there and why did you choose this school?

Trinity also rocks.  While at Trinity I majored in Political Science with a focus on International Relations and a minor in Latin American Studies.  I chose Trinity for a variety of reasons; a bunch of my Exeter friends would be attending, it was close to NYC and it's a great school, to name a few.

You ended up in San Francisco after this, and worked briefly with an economic forensic expert, then ended up doing work as a financial analyst at an investment bank. If I recall correctly there was only one opening for this position but they made room for you as well. What exactly do you have to do to be special enough to get someone to create a job for you and what did you do at this job?

Come with it man!!  But seriously, I think it was a combination of my energy and enthusiasm (aka - ass-kissing) combined with the fact that the company saw a future need for more people in similar roles and they figured they'd have the work to keep me busy in the interim (and they certainly did).  The guy who got the job over me had more specific experience but the head honchos knew they were going to need more folks in a few months so they figured, why wait 3 more months when a perfectly good candidate is right here.  As such, while the question makes me seem sweet, the reality is that it wasn't that big of a deal.    Without getting into too much detail, while there, I became an excel monkey and worked on teams that helped companies become public (i.e., list on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, for example) or helped companies that were in the process of getting sold (or being bought).

Once you realized what a Dullsville being a financial analyst you worked a couple other things, saved up some cash and split for Southeast Asia for a few months.
What sort of antics does a Puerto Rican from The Bronx get up to in Thailand, or are you even allowed to talk about it since it happened before you got married?

You get up all sorts of nefarious activities... and I'll leave it at that.  Suffice to say, I'm looking forward to my next full moon party in Thailand... whenever that is!

After all your travels abroad, you ended up back in the states and went to school at USC for your MBA. From this point on you jumped around a bit trying to get involved in your own start ups, opening a restaurant or two, worked as part of the two man operation that sold and distributed the infamous Head Blade which is a must have for all balding men or those into the shaved head look. Tell us a bit about working on that, as it was literally you and the founder doing it all which relates to how dA was in its early days.

Headblade kicked ass.  I'd always had a distant appreciation for how hard it is to start and run a company but I had been a middleman of sorts in my i-banking days.  For the first time, I was on the entrepreneur's side and it was rather eye-opening.  Here I was, fresh from graduate school with a master's degree in business and I was doing everything from packing orders, to helping transition manufacturing from domestic facilities to China, to writing business plans to picking up lunch.  It was my first real insight into how hard it is to start something, how much work it requires and ultimately realizing that no job is too big nor too small if you're tying to start a company from scratch.

After this, you ended up getting married, moving to Seattle and landed back doing investment banking which seemed to be something you tried to avoid going back to. So, how did that end and how did that lead to discovering the wonderful world of deviantART?

I was at Headblade for a little over a year and we were starting to make some considerable headway against our goals.  We had hired two people and things were looking up.  During this year, my wife had applied to graduate programs in architecture and was admitted to the University of Washington.  As such, it was either leave my wife, or move my ass to Seattle and while I loved HeadBlade, I loved my wife more.  When we got to Seattle, I needed work, was looking for work, and given my background the fates put me back in an investment banking gig.  So I did it to the pay the bills but eventually had to get on with something new as I had no passion for what I was doing.  In March of 2006, a friend of mine, who also happens to be deviantART's lawyer thought that Angelo and I should meet.  He thought we had complimentary skills and were each at a point in time where those skills needed to come together.  And, as they say, the rest is history...

What excited you about the opportunity to come work for us? With your background you could pick and choose pretty easily where you wanted to go, and dA was a pretty hectic place to be around the time you joined, yet here you are.

I wish I could pick and choose... but that's a story for another time... what excited me... the tremendous opportunity, the chance to work for a leading edge and wholly unique entity that is truly one-of-a-kind on the web and not to mention, the chance to see your smiling face... but ultimately, I embraced the chaos and it has been good to me in return.

One of your first major projects you got involved in was working with divX and helping see film get implemented on dA. That's a pretty cool first step with the site, and helped bring a really cool element to the community, most of whom probably had no idea that you were involved till just now. What was your role with this?

I worked with DivX to frame the business case both for their investment in dA as well as the case for film as a viable artistic outlet on dA.  The work itself involved a lot of negotiating and a lot of back-and-forth to make sure that dA film is the best independent film site on the web.  And I think dA film is great.  In my opinion, the DivX option is well placed, not intrusive and ultimately enhances what we offer without forcing DivX down people's throats.   

In addition to working on the divX/film project, you have also helped work on some of the bigger scale contests and other things that have helped get solid, tangible real world results for artists out there. The Skin a Scion contest is probably the most notable, as well as some of the smaller movie related projects like Dead Silence, Sweeney Todd, Eagle vs Shark and so on.  What is it that motivates you to pursue opportunities and work like this?

A big part of my job responsibility is to help dA generate revenue.  I have to balance this with avoiding the perception of selling out and coming off as insincere.  Of course, some people will think anything we do is a sell-out and others think we don't do enough to get exposure for artists.  It's impossible to please both of these extremes.  So I focus on projects where I can engage the community, offer them an opportunity for some exposure, provide an opportunity to win something (cash or otherwise) and ultimately a chance to do something cool for their portfolio.  This way, whether you win or not, at least you tried something, put yourself out there and took a chance.  Everyone has to work on their craft, and I try and provide an opportunity for folks to work on their craft, have some fun, compete and maybe win something.  Ultimately, what does it matter if the work is for Scion or some other brand - it's the work and experience that are important.  Everything else is corporate mumbo jumbo.

You also helped revamp advertising early on. We all know that ads and advertising gets a pretty bad rap all across the internet, and on dA even moreso than usual. Any light you want to shed into this world and what you did early on to help people understand why it is a necessary thing to help things run?

Ads are a fact of life on dA.  Without them, we can't keep the lights on and keep Lolly accustomed to his Big Willie lifestyle.  We are ALWAYS trying to improve the quality and placement of ads. Again, no matter what we do, some people will always hate the aspect of ads on dA.  To those people I say subscribe!  Hopefully in the future we'll see more fun, engaging contests and promotions... but ultimately we will look to continue to partner with brands that provide products relevant to our community... Adobe, Corel, Wacom, nVidia, etc.

Overall, what would you describe your role as within the structure of the dA staff, and what is it that you are bringing to the table and why should the community be happy to know you are here working behind the curtains for them?

My role at dA is to help the company grow while maintaining a healthy and vibrant community.  And by the way, that's everyone's job at dAÖ.  But seriously, I work a lot with Angelo and often act as a sounding board for ideas he has or as a filter for ideas that are brought to him.  Once a project is underway (non IT related, of course), I often act as a project manager and help take things from concept to delivery.  I wear many hats here but finance and business development are my two areas of focus.  And people should be happy I'm here because I'm not full-of-shit and have sincere interest and passion for all things dA.  As such, I am always an advocate of community first.  Everything else second.

What are your long term goals and what sort of new opportunities are you planning on bringing or being involved with?

Long-term - to provide the best all around art platform on the web.  With respect to new opportunities - I'm open to whatever, whenever as long as it helps achieve the long-term goal.

What does your infamous phrase, CTC mean?

Its really only funny in context, so if you're not a basketball fan, don't know who Rasheed Wallace is, and don't remember when he said it for the first time, its not all that funny.  But look, it's even in the urban dictionary!
Cut the Check.

Now that you have been here for a while, what has changed about your perception of not only being part of staff, but of the community itself?

Despite my limited involvement in the day-day community aspects of dA, I'm always still amazed at the passion people have for dA, whether they work here or not.  I don't care who you are and what type of company you have, you can't buy what we got... and that's really special.

Are there any types of art you were previously unaware of that have caught your eye here?

Pumpkin Art!!

What do you think of the deviants themselves?

The most talented, creative and passionate group of people ever assembled... and I gotta keep working harder to keep them at dA and to make sure dA remains relevant.

If you had more time to spend within the community you would spend it where?

I never (or hardly ever) hang in the forums or in chat - so that'd be a good place to start.

Boxers or briefs?

Boxer briefs in jeans, boxers all other times.

Any last words for the good deviants who have taken the time to learn more about what you do and who you are?

Be passionate, keep practicing, hone your craft and what you put into your work in terms of effort and hard work will be paid back to you 10x in the future.  We're working as hard as we can to continually improve the site - we have a diverse group of people who all want their needs served at once... be patient with us... they are millions of you and only 45 or so of us... but remember that we always have your best interests at heart and always put the dA community first.

From the Deviants!

Questions from the community...

How do you effect the art/business balance? Or how to you maintain it?

Excellent question.  When faced with a business vs art question, as a general rule, we always err on the side of what's best for the community.  Business or financial gains should never, ever come at the expense of the core values of deviantART which are to promote art(ists), to create interaction around and within art, to provide a place for collaboration and to provide a forum for education and information exchange.  There are a million ways to make money, but there is only way to maintain a community - and that's to be true to what we are and maintain consistency with our values.

If you could swap jobs for a day with someone within dA, who would it be and why?

I love my specific job at dA - so I'm not particularly inclined to want to switch with anyone.  But I think it'd be fun to be Chris Bolt for a day.  The complexity of managing the website traffic, of distributing requests and actions across a large base of servers, of managing the needs of the developers with respect to live code, test code etc is fascinating to me.  I'm not a techy, in fact, I'm quite the tech neophyte, but I find Chris's grasp of the technical elements of dA to be fascinating and think it would be cool to have a similar skill set.  Maybe in another life...

What's it like working at dA, and how many drugs does one need to take before visiting $lolly's office?

Working at dA rocks. There is no other way to put it.  Like any job, it has its ups and downs but on the whole, it's very rewarding.  The people at dA are passionate about the company and the opportunity to deliver a collaborative and far reaching art platform that is inclusive of all talents and mediums of expressions.  We all feel like we work at a place where we can make a difference in people's lives and that's about as much as you can ask for from a job.  Good people, compelling and worthwhile challenge and terrific art to look at, its all good to me.  And Lolly's office is a smorgasbord of Tibetan prayer flags, Gweepee dolls, art and all sorts of chachkis... so usually I talk to him from the doorway...

based on the theory that everyone collects something i'd like to put forward the question:  what is it you collect, whats your favourite in your collection and why?

This article, for better or worse, is kind of my coming out party.  As such, I have nothing in my collections... yet... but I will soon.  As for what I like, Graffiti, Photography (Nature, Architecture), Comic Book Art (X-men type stuff), and Paintings (Abstract).