freedom, learning, resting, and working in big tech

Reflections on starting a new job in big tech after months of resting and thinking. What does freedom look like?

Unknowns and learning

I love the first phase of a new job because I love the feeling of being clueless. It feels like someone has dropped me in an unknown country where everyone speaks a foreign language and I have to figure out how life works in this new country by engaging with everything. You conquer fear and the feeling of unknowns by educating yourself and engaging with the things that feel scary. Get closer, touch it, engage with it, and watch the fear go away. Like magic.

In every corner, I see words and concepts I don’t understand, but I know that in a few months, I’ll understand most of it like running water. There are very few situations in life where you know, with absolute certainty, that putting effort into understanding will be rewarding. While learning is always beneficial and fun, it’s not always useful. When you start a new job, by definition, learning is useful. Your life will improve with knowledge, in all categories. I think of this when the inevitable rush of panic hits my brain, dam, will I ever understand any of this? I’m just at level 1 in the TV game, and I am not supposed to understand it yet.

The learning process in big tech vs start-ups

I’ve also been reflecting on my experience working in start-ups vs big companies. In a small and young company, you are rewarded for hitting the ground running fast. While this is also true in a bigger organization, you do need to put a lot more time into easing into things rather than trying to come up with solutions to problems on day 1 because… guess what? This is a huge company with lots of very smart people and it is very likely that 1) someone else has already suggested the same thing (which is still ok of course), or 2) the solution you are suggesting is not at all feasible or 3) some teams are already working on it or 4) you don’t understand the problem deeply enough, yet. I am not saying you shouldn’t speak unless your idea is unique, but I am saying you’ll need more time in larger organizations compared to smaller companies. I like to think of it as going into a highly regulated industry; you simply have to spend a lot of time figuring out the system and how things work before you can produce anything meaningful. Resisting the urge to come up with solutions is quite hard as it means battling against your ego and desire to contribute from the minute you enter the chat.

What does a liberated brain feel like?

After leaving TikTok, I took some time off. It wasn’t planned but I managed to shorten my 3 months notice period quite a bit. I wanted to know what my body and brain would feel like in a state of freedom, which requires time and a free calendar. Taking months to “figure out what’s next” makes sense because time is often an important factor if you want to reach a certain level of clarity. During the first phase of this period, I was obsessively looking for start-up ideas. I had 100 calls with potential co-founders, I was part of an accelerator program, and went through 50 ideas with strangers. Progressed on some, less on others. Loved talking about ideas every day, it was fantastic. Rejected most ideas quickly. Didn’t have any conviction in any of them. I realized that pressuring yourself when your entire body and brain are screaming I just want to exist with no restrictions and I don’t want to show up to anyone or anything for a little while is not very helpful. I felt guilty because I wasn’t showing up as my best self to this potential co-founder and I wanted to distance myself from the source of feeling guilty. So I stepped back a bit. Took it a bit slow, and tried to see what would come up when I wasn’t attached to something or someone. 

The sense of freedom that followed felt so, so, so good. I wrote more than I usually do, spent more time on this substack, and received amazing response, but still didn’t progress to the point I wanted to be at. I realized how good it felt to write when I had time on my hands and could go with the ebb and flow of my mood and my energy bursts, especially as a person with ADD. It felt natural. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that before, especially so many weeks in a row. I did some freelance work for the BBC and some wedding photography, I read five books and traveled a lot. But mostly, I spent time thinking and feeling, and it felt really good. It was the first time I was truly alone and free in my own brain after going through big personal changes the year before, and it was kinda cool to feel like oh hey there, I like this new version!

Choosing to be free

Naturally, going back to a job feels a bit stressful because I don't have the freedom to run with my own emotions and the ebb and flow of my energy levels anymore. Having to be consistent scares the shit out of me. What I do know though, is that feeling freedom is a choice, and most of it is just attitude. There is never going to be a point in life where I can exist in true freedom or without restrictions, so searching for that emotion, and making that state the north star, the desired outcome, will only make everything else worthless. Instead, we have to decide to choose to feel free and achieve it by setting clear boundaries in our own life, professionally and personally, and decide which lens we should choose to see our commitments through. Is it one of freedom and choice, or the one of a victim?

I am excited to learn new things, engaging with smart people, I am excited to continue working in the ever growing online safety space, excited to work on new exciting products, excited to learn more about privacy and integrity, and I’ll choose to see everything that initially feels painful with a positive attitude. I’ll try my best to feel free in a system where I am not. I’ll let you know how it goes.