A former employee who earned nearly $1 million in a single year has revealed why he walked away from the tech giant to launch his own startup.
In an as-told-to essay by Business Insider, Yousuf Imran, a 41-year-old former account executive based in the San Francisco Bay Area, said that although Google paid him exceptionally well, he experienced “FOMO (Fear of missing out)” as companies like and Anthropic offered stock packages that could be “life-changing.”
“I earned nearly $1 million last year as an account executive at Google, but I felt some ‘FOMO’ around the AI boom,” he wrote, adding that the prospect of owning equity in his own company ultimately outweighed the financial security of his job.
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How he earned nearly $1 million
Imran shared that he joined Google in 2020 after spending around 15 years in sales. He helped customers adopt Google’s AI and machine-learning technologies.
While his base salary stood at around $170,000, commissions made up the bulk of his earnings. He said that his W-2 income for the year totalled about $986,000.
Imran credited his success to what he called an “immigrant hustle.” He said that his family moved from Bangladesh to New York when he was 5, and he grew up believing that hard work was essential for success. He also attributed his performance to developing a deep understanding of customers’ businesses and becoming well-versed in AI and machine learning.
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Why he left Google
The 41-year-old shared that his interest in AI soon extended beyond his day job. Outside work, he spent nights and weekends experimenting with tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, gradually building apps and side projects despite not being a software engineer.
He also admitted that Google’s layoffs in recent years made him rethink his long-term career plans. “What struck me about the recent layoff rounds at Google was that they hit genuinely talented people,” he wrote, adding that the uncertainty reinforced his decision to “bet on” himself.
Imran said that he left Google in April to launch Mangosteen Studio, an AI product lab focused on building AI-powered sales tools for account executives.
He said that the decision was carefully planned rather than impulsive. Before resigning, he saved $200,000 to fund the business for 2 years and another $150,000 to cover his mortgage and personal expenses during that period.
He said that his goal is to bootstrap the company for as long as possible without raising outside funding, allowing him to retain ownership and focus on building the business instead of worrying about finances.
Reflecting on his decision, Imran said that leaving Google meant giving up financial security and access to cutting-edge AI resources. However, he believes that his experience in sales and confidence in his domain expertise made it the right time to take the leap.
“For people who feel stuck in their careers or aren’t being challenged, AI is giving people an opportunity to build something of their own. The key is having domain expertise you can lean on. I wasn’t a software engineer, but I spent 20 years learning the problems salespeople face,” Imran said.
“Ultimately, I recognized that leaving Google meant leaving a lot of things behind – both financially and professionally. But my confidence and domain expertise made me feel like this was the right moment to take the risk,” he added.
