https://www.preethikasireddy.com/post/why-im-leaving-silicon-valley
Here’s something I never thought I’d say: this is my last week in Silicon Valley.
This post is a personal one. Rather than sharing insights on Blockchain or Javascript, I’d like to walk through my inner journey the past few years.
It’s a journey that’s left me itching for change — and driving down to Los Angeles to set up a new home base is a big one!
I moved to Silicon Valley during the summer of 2012, a little over five years ago. I had just graduated college and serendipitously landed here because of a new job offer. I was eager and anxious to start my career out here and frankly had no idea what to expect.
As it turned out, I lucked out — Silicon Valley is one of the best places in the world for entrepreneurs, engineers, and anyone bold enough to try and change the world through technology.
…This was a stark contrast to life in my New Jersey hometown, where most people went to the community college, pursued 9-to-5 jobs, and settled into comfortable lives by their mid-20s. There was very little space there for thinking big, or taking risks, or creating your own career path.
So, landing in San Francisco was the best kind of culture shock imaginable. Suddenly, I was surrounded by technology and innovation and immersed in a community where challenging yourself was actually encouraged.
The next three years of living in San Francisco had a path-altering impact on my life, as I began to learn that crazy ideas aren’t “crazy” for those of us willing to put in the work and take a few risks.
That first post-college job was as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, where I was able to learn how tech company financials work at a fundamental level through working with CEOs and CFOs preparing for IPO rounds and acquisitions. This was hugely beneficial when I later moved on to working with some of those tech companies directly, and planted the seeds of my interest in solving problems with software.
After a year at Goldman Sachs, however, I realized that a career in banking was not what I wanted long term. I wanted to go back to being an engineer as I had been in college. So I decided to go against the grain and say goodbye to a “successful” position. Where was I off to next?
Well, I was on the brink of leaving to join as a systems engineer for a small industrial startup in the middle of the country. But after a random cold email followed by a long series of unexpected events, I got an offer to join Andreessen Horowitz on the deal team. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up — and thank God I didn’t.
I spent the next two years at Andreessen Horowitz, where I worked with and learned from the pioneers of the web, like Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Chris Dixon, and many others. I saw thousands of companies come through the doors — I saw their ideas, their teams, their challenges and their strengths. I learned the ins and outs of building a successful technology startup, and on the flip side, learned the common mistakes that lead to failure. Most importantly, I met incredible entrepreneurs who inspired me to also become like them one day.
When I left a16z, I made the transition to software engineering. I was young and wanted to go out and just build stuff for the world. You could say that I had “entrepreneur envy” — I was eager to build products day to day, and eventually start my own company. I’ve written about my experience extensively in the past.
This transition was nothing short of amazing. I was learning and growing at a break-neck pace. I was passionate and excited by my work. Frankly, I was having so much fun being an engineer that not a single day felt like “work”.