Meet the downsizers who quit the likes of Google and Facebook for a new life at a start-up

clock • 4 min read

What makes someone swap a successful job at a thriving technology giant for a role at a start-up? Sooraj Shah talks to three such downsizers to find out

“Transparency is number one. You know what’s going on, you can talk to any particular teammates and they are willing to share what they are doing. There is no hidden information, and that makes it all more exciting,” he said.

“At Google, we didn’t have visibility outside of storing data, it wasn’t about users using Google services – it was more sheltered. With Nutanix it is more about customer feedback, it’s much more rewarding to see that you’re making an impact. I like that we have a direct connection to people,” he added.

The lure of moving to a start-up has always been there for employees of big firms but now certain factors are driving people towards tech start-ups, according to Adams.

“A lot of the larger tech companies tend to hire design, product or engineering people who are very entrepreneurial. They think there is a substantial chance this person will one day want to start their own company but they’re confident that given enough opportunities they’ll stick around,” he said.

Another factor, Adams said, is that starting a technology company has become a lot easier.

“A lot of the software is open source, a lot of the database requirements or solutions are open source and there is very cheap storage available from the likes of Amazon. So the buy-in entry to build a software company now is much lower than even five years ago, the infrastructure is in a place where it wasn’t before,” he explained.

But the shift from firms like Google or Facebook to a start-up isn’t as drastic as that from the likes of IBM or HP a decade ago, according to Adams.

“I think it’s a lot more similar than it used to be. At Google and Facebook, a lot of the teams internally are structured very similarly to how a start-up would be structured, with many small teams, executing really fast, shipping code really fast, working as an autonomous unit, much like the way a start-up operates,” he said.

But while Byrne agreed that there is still something of a start-up atmosphere at Google, it isn’t a patch on the real thing.

“A start-up culture is much more open, everyone wants to build something meaningful,” he said.

Either way, the three former tech giant employees don’t regret their moves, and ironically, it was technology from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google that spurred them to look elsewhere.

@Sooraj_Shah

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