When Stability Stops Scaling: A Mid Career Pivot

For most of my life, I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I studied hard. I went abroad. I collected the right credentials. Like many Indians of my generation, education wasn’t about discovery—it was about arriving at a secure, respectable job. That was success. That was safety.

And it worked.

Indians abroad grew from about 20 million in 2000 to roughly 35 million by 2025. In my INSEAD MBA class, around 20% were Indian, far more than any other nationality. We weren’t short on ambition—we just knew precisely where to aim it. That aim made sense. Immigration systems are built around employment: student visas, skilled worker programs, employer sponsorship. Citizenship pathways are long or non-existent. Families back home depend on us. In a country that sends back USD 130 billion in remittances, a good job isn’t just personal income—it’s insurance for an entire family.

So we learned early that stability isn’t optional. It’s a responsibility. That mindset stays. Even now, when I talk about entrepreneurship, the responses I get are familiar. Some believe safety comes from following the FIRE path — stay employed, save aggressively, invest, exit someday. Others see jobs as such a deep part of our identity that we should stick with them, well into our 70s, even if they stop being fulfilling. And some argue I shouldn’t hire anyone at all, because today you can do so much by yourself. None of these views are irrational. I’ve held all of them at different points.

Over time, this started to bother me. I noticed how often “later” became a substitute for “never”. How financial independence was planned for, but employment dependence was never questioned. How minimizing risk slowly turned into avoiding it altogether. We celebrate the Indian Origin leaders who made it to the very top—Indra Nooyi, Sundar Pichai, Vasant Narasimhan, Leena Nair, Sathya Nadella — and we should. They prove how far we can go inside existing systems. But for every one of them, millions of us quietly decide not to build anything of our own, because employment feels safer.

What’s changed for me is the realization that the actual risk landscape is different now. With AI, low‑cost experimentation, and fractional talent, the upfront financial and execution risk of building something has dropped dramatically. You can test ideas without burning years. You can start without betting everything. The risk isn’t gone—but it’s far more measured than the stories we grew up with.

At the same time, the cost of not trying has become clearer. Staying perpetually safe has its own downside: postponed independence, deferred creativity, and the quiet regret of never finding out. The Indian diaspora has done an extraordinary job remitting capital back home. But Viksit Bharat will need more than money. It will need ventures, leadership, innovation, and people willing to build before everything feels guaranteed. I’m not rejecting my background. I’m acting because of it.

I understand why we value stability so deeply. I understand why jobs feel safe. I understand why risk makes us uncomfortable. But I also see that security, when held onto too tightly, can slowly limit what we’re willing to imagine. So I’m choosing to take risk now—not recklessly, not blindly—but intentionally.

Not because I don’t respect safety. Because I finally understand its limits.