I Quit My High Paying Product Job to Bet on Myself

Hey everyone. So last year I made seven figures at my product job and just last week I quit that job to bet on myself. Now this wasn't an easy choice to make. After over a decade in product, walking away felt like giving up a core part of my identity. And this is going to be the most personal video that I made yet on this channel. But I want to share five principles that have helped me make this

choice. And I hope that they'll help you too in your career. Number one is to go where work feels like play. You know, I became a PM over a decade ago because I wanted to ship great products. I love the loop of understanding problems, identifying solutions, and executing to craft something great. And that loop is exactly what I got to do at Roblox. I have a lot of fond memories from building and shipping amazing creator products and tools with my talented team of engineers, designers, and PMs. And most of all, I loved watching Roblox creators light up as we put these products into their hands. But there's another side of product management that I didn't love, and it exists in some form at all the great companies that I've worked at. I call it product management theater and it's when the focus shifts to polishing internal documents over the actual userfacing product. Getting stakeholder alignment over doing what's right for customers and climbing the career ladder over building and shipping products they can be truly proud of. Early in my career, I spent four hours in a meeting with other PMs aligning on quarterly OKRs. And that was honestly one of the longest days of my PM career. Being stuck in that room is what actually pushed me to write my very first newsletter post. And now I have over 100,000 subscribers. Back then I desperately need to ship something even if it was just a blog post. And there's a framework that I come back to whenever I'm making a big career decision like this. And it's called the zone of genius framework. Basically, you can use it to sort your work into four zones. Zone of genius is what you're great at and love doing. Zone of curiosity is what you suck at but still love learning about. Zone of excellence is what you're great at but really don't like doing. And zone of incompetence is what you both suck at and have no desire to improve. My zone of genius is building products with customers and sharing what I'm learning with all of you. My zone of curiosity is getting better at building with AI agents. But all that PM theater that I just talked about earlier in this video, that falls squarely into the other two zones. So my point here is that you have to be honest with yourself. I realized that I don't want to spend my day in back-to-back meetings, no matter how much money or prestige comes with those jobs. I also realized that I was waking up at 6:00 a. m. every day to write this newsletter and make these videos, even though I didn't make any money from it for years. Of course, I also really love parts of the PM job where I get to craft products and share memes with my team. And honestly, I miss a lot of that already. But life is about making trade-offs. And right now, I want to spend more of my day in my zone of genius and curiosity. So, I encourage you to map out your zones, too. And just be really honest with yourself about what you actually enjoy doing. Even if you're not making any money from those activities right now, for me, I really love shipping and building. You know, if I can't ship or build something for a week, I start

feeling my energy get drained. Which brings me to my second principle. Give yourself permission to build. The traditional career ladder pushes everyone to become a manager and a leader, but I just want to be a builder. And the reality is that a lot of managers and leaders have calendars that look like this. And because of this, the only time that I actually had to build was on nights and weekends. Now, don't get me wrong. I really enjoy helping my PMs grow and think I'm really good at it. But I never want to give up the craft of making great products. I love being hands-on and obsessing over every little detail from the copy to the UX to the marketing because that's what it actually takes to deliver really good products. And I loved being able to check in code myself as a PM with AI's help. Of course, here's a quick tongue and cheek GitHub profile that I made at work that my engineers really loved seeing. Yet, as you climb the career ladder at many companies, you're expected to step away from building and fill your days with product reviews, cross functional alignment, managing up, and performance calibrations. You know, I know a lot of builders out there who spent their best years climbing the wrong ladder. Don't be one of them. And the good news is that right now this is finally changing. Companies are rewarding builders and IC's more than ever. And even managers and directors are expected to do IC work, too. But becoming a good builder takes time and takes reps. And it's just hard to put in those reps where you're in backto-back meetings all day. So if you're a builder at heart, embrace it. You don't have to give up what you're good at to be a leader who's stuck in alignment hell all day. It doesn't really matter if you're engineer, product manager, marketer, designer, or any other function. Learn

how to build. My next principle is that at some point, trading time for wealth just isn't worth it anymore. You know, most people in tech are obsessed with total compensation and getting that next title. If you spend any time on blind, you know what I'm talking about. Everyone is comparing how much money they make, what their title is, and whether they can get a job at OpenAI, Anthropic, or FAN. Look, I get it. Putting a few years at one of these companies, and you can probably make generational wealth, and you can be surrounded by really smart people and ship some really great things. But the people who have all these things, who hit all these goals, often have the least control over their time. If you are a VP, for example, chances are you're in backto-back meetings from morning to night. And you know, kudos to anyone who can do that job well, but it's just not the life that I want. Instead, here's what I figured out about myself after the highest earning year of my career. Past a certain point, more money is not worth giving up agency over your time. And real agency inside most companies is rare. You might pour yourself into a promising product that gets cancelled. You might have a great manager who gets reorked out. So much of it is out of your hands. And while I have a lot of respect for VC back founders, that life also sounds very stressful. You have investors, a board, and payroll to satisfy every month, whether you like it or not. With a VC back company, you have to go big or go home. You can't just make a few million dollars, achieve profitability. your investors is going to force you to 10x or 100x your business. So the path that I want to try is just being a bootstrap founder of a small solo business. And I realized that as long as I can pay the bills, I'm willing to trade off hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to control who I work with, what I work on, and how hard I want to work. And you know what? It's only been a week, but I love waking up to a calendar with no meetings before the afternoon and enough time to chase my curiosity and share what I learned with you all. And you know, the funny thing is growing up, I didn't even know that this was a real career path. I chased prestigious schools and brandame companies and thought that was the only option. But I think bootstrapping makes a lot more sense now for many people. It's cheaper than ever to start a business and a single person with AI tools and agents can just get a lot more done. So to wrap up this section, there's this image from Wait by Y that brings into perspective just how little time we all have. I'm in my early 40s, so almost half my time is already over. And if you're in my shoes, just realize that the hedonistic treadmill of chasing money and prestige can become a trap.

Time and agency is the most valuable asset that we all have. Number four, surround yourself with people who share your curiosity. One of the best ways to spend your time is with people who share your values and goals. And these days, you know, I mostly make friends through my kids playdates or online. And X or Twitter can be a pretty toxic platform if you're just doom scrolling. But I made some really good friends who give me the courage to make this bet. And I think everyone should have a few group chats with people who are on the same journey as them. Two group chats that I specifically rely on are a YouTube learning group started by my friend Steve who spent 14 years as a principal engineer at Amazon before building his own coaching and creator business. And I joke that this group is bad for the economy because everyone in it eventually walks away from their high-paying tech job to build something of their own. And another group that I really love being part of is a PM creator group started by Ben with folks that you might know like Lenny, Alina, and others. And everyone in it is a PM or product leader who's also teaching, creating, and building their own thing. So my point is that, you know, it's really important to find people who share your values and goals. people who are honest, encouraging, and open, who are not going to put up the front. People who are authentic, right? And who will give you the courage to really make a big call like this. Courage is contagious. So, hang out with people who have done some version of what you want to do and who are honest about all the parts that actually suck. Build a

relationships and cherish them. My final principle is that the people you love won't be there for you forever. You know, I think about my parents a lot these days. They worked really hard to provide for me and now they're retired and honestly living a great life. They're going on vacations and cruises all the time. And the thing is, once you're retired, nobody really cares what your title was, how much money you made, or which company logos are on your LinkedIn. Everyone just wants to enjoy what's left of their life and be around the people that they love. And the reality is that at most companies I've worked at, there are only a handful of co-workers that I still keep in touch with. Almost everyone else moves on the moment that your employment ends. So if work isn't a relationship that lasts, then it has to be the people that we too often ignore in favor of work, which is our family and close friends. And you know, balancing my product job and my creator business made me feel really productive. But the fact is, I hadn't had breakfast with my kids in months. I was just working all the time. So, over the past week, I've been able to walk my 8-year-old daughter to school. It's 20 minutes each way. 20 minutes that I used to spend stuck in traffic or on Slack. And now that I spended walking her to school, she tells me all about her friends, her dreams, and the things that she's worried about. And this walk, I can tell you guys, is now the highlight of my day. So before I left my job, I promised my wife that I spend more time with my kids. And you know, parenting is hard and I'm far from perfect. Sometimes I just want to shut myself in a room and play some video games, right? But now that I have a lot more time on my hands, I'm going to try to keep that promise. And the fact is, nobody wants to put on their tombstone that they got divorced and they let their family, but at least they made VP at Meta. The people you love won't be there forever, so spend more time with them while you still can. All right, let's recap the five principles that led to my decision to leave a highpaying job that I loved to bet on myself. Number one, go where work feels like play. Map out your zone of genius. Be careful about your zone of excellence. And just be really honest with yourself about what you actually enjoy doing, right? Don't play someone else's game. Play your own game. Number two, give yourself permission to build. If you're a builder at heart, and I know many people in tech are, embrace it because you don't have to give up what you're good at to become a manager or leader or whatever society expects from you. Number three, at some point, trading time for wealth just isn't worth it anymore. Real wealth, in my opinion, is having agency over who you work with, what you work on, and how hard you work. Of course, you have to pay the bills, but be careful about signing up for a lifestyle, taking on big mortgages and private school that forces you into a certain type of life. And number four, surround yourself with people who share your curiosity. Courage is contagious, and having people around who are a similar journey as you is just incredibly valuable. And finally, remember that the people you love won't be there forever. If you're type A like me, too often you sacrifice family time and hang out with your close friends for work. Just remember that they won't be around forever. So, make sure that you spend time with them. Now, if you're feeling an itch to bootstrap your own business after watching this video, one more thing is that you don't have to quit your job right away. You know, I didn't do this until I was making around the same for my business as my product salary. And it takes a long time to figure out actually what you want to do. So I just recommend everyone to tinker and explore things on the side even if you actually love your job which I did too. So you may be wondering what am I

going to do next? You know one day maybe I want to go back to a company work for a lab try to bring forward AGI and I think it'll be fun. But for now my focus is on delivering the most practical AI tutorials and interviews available online. And that means three things. making this channel and my newsletter the best place to learn AI online without all the hype and Number two, making behindthecraft. com an incredible resource and membership with access to my favorite AI tools like Whisperflow and Granola and my personal AI operating system. And finally, I want to keep building products with AI myself and sharing the wins and the mistakes with you all along the way and also with my AI builder community. One more thing before I close. It's so easy these days to pump out AI slop. But I think trust is the only currency that actually matters for creators and builders. And I promise that although I will use AI to try to save time, everything that I create will be reviewed by my eyes and will be as much as I can AI slot free. If I become too cringe, you guys should let me know. Okay. Now, if you'd like to join me on this journey, please like and subscribe to this channel. And I really appreciate you all for being here and supporting me.