I left my job because I was bored.
Not the kind of bored where you scroll your phone in meetings. The kind where you wake up and realize you haven’t been challenged in months. Maybe longer. The work was fine. The people were fine. Everything was fine, and that was the problem.
So I left. And I did what you’re supposed to do — updated my LinkedIn, polished my CV, started taking calls with recruiters. I was going through the motions of finding the next thing, but something felt off. Like I was shopping for a house I didn’t actually want to live in.
I couldn’t name what was missing. Not yet.
Then I went to the Google for Startups Campus.
My friend Avi had left his job a while back to start a company. I already knew about it — we’d met before, talked about what he was building. But this time was different. This time I was there, inside the campus, surrounded by it all.
The energy in that place is hard to describe if you haven’t been. Every corner has someone sketching on a whiteboard, huddled over a laptop, arguing about what to build first. It buzzes with the kind of intensity that makes you feel both inspired and small at the same time.
Avi walked me through everything. Their solution. Their design partners. Their vision for where this thing could go. He was alive in a way I hadn’t seen before — not performing excitement, but genuinely consumed by what he was building.
And here’s the thing that hit me the hardest: about five years earlier, when we worked together, we’d talked about doing exactly this. We’d sat down, brainstormed ideas, got genuinely excited about building something of our own. It was more than just bar talk — we’d sketched out rough concepts, debated markets, felt that spark. But then life happened. New roles, new responsibilities, the usual gravity that keeps you in your lane.
He broke free. I didn’t.
Sitting there in that campus, listening to him talk about his startup like it was the most important thing in the world, I felt jealous. Not the ugly kind. Not resentment. More like a mirror someone holds up to your face when you’re not ready for it.
I wasn’t angry at him. I was angry at myself.
The feeling didn’t go away when I left the campus. It followed me home. It was there the next morning while I sat at my desk, staring at code that suddenly felt pointless. It was there when a recruiter called about a senior engineering role and I said “sounds interesting” while feeling absolutely nothing.
The restlessness that had been floating around for weeks suddenly had a shape. It had a name. I didn’t want to find a better version of the same thing. I didn’t want another team, another sprint cycle, another roadmap someone else drew.
I wanted to build something of my own.
I’m not going to pretend this was some cinematic moment where orchestral music played and I threw my CV in the trash. It was quieter than that. It was me sitting alone, being honest with myself for the first time in a while.
I didn’t have an idea. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have funding or a pitch deck or a Notion board with color-coded milestones. All I had was a feeling that had finally solidified into a decision.
I’m done looking for a job. I’m going to build something.
I had the hunger. Now I needed a partner. But that story is for next time.