In April 2015, after 4.5 years of working for Google, I decided it was time for a change. I had been part of the International Product Partnerships team which does business development for a number of Google products, and spent my time building relationships with books publishers in mostly German speaking countries. When I joined Google, the product I worked on was Google Book Search, which was part of Google’s effort to digitize the world’s information and make it searchable and universally accessible. In late 2010, we launched the first version of Google eBooks, a commercial extension of this original idea which finally allowed users to purchase titles that they had found via our web search not only in physical, but also in electronic format. In the coming years, this product was merged with Google Play, and subsequently formed one of several verticals offering digital content to Android users — similar to iTunes’ offering for Apple users.
While Google is an incredible company to work for, it is also a life in golden handcuffs. The food is amazing, the perks are incredible (free massages, beautiful offices, free gym, talks, lectures, etc.), and compared to the industry standard we’re really well paid. Add to that colleagues who are all in a similar age range and many of which have become friends over time, it’s really hard to imagine a life “out there”, without Google. However, at least for me, there was this nagging feeling that I wasn’t stretching myself enough, and that I was becoming complacent and not learning as fast as as much as I should have done. Looking for new challenges within Google proved difficult, at least if you’re not looking to become a cog in the sales engine or do not have an engineering background that would open the doors to one of the famed “moonshots” — really exciting projects that a chosen few of the Google population are allowed to work on and which the rest of us gets to hear about once every six months when they are celebrated at our weekly global TGIFs. Here, Larry and Sergey, resembling a nerdy version of the comical duo Laurel and Hardy, open the stage for teams to present their work in a meeting that is broadcast around the globe. And while I’ve always left those TGIF streamings feeling inspired and grateful to be working for a company with great ambition, I also felt that I myself wasn’t actually contributing to move the world forward in the grand scheme of things. Once you’ve launched the x-th “Books on Google Play” store in yet a new country, you know how things are run and you begin to wonder whether another thousand books online will really make a difference — to anyone.
So, having come to that point in my thoughts and being faced with the dilemma of having a job that other people would kill for, I decided it was time for a radical cut. A cut, because from within Google many other options look “not quite great enough”, and because your priorities begin to shift in weird ways — you start evaluating other jobs by the stylishness of the work space, and by how delicious their canteen might be. A cut also in terms of outside perception. Working for Google is like having the perfect boyfriend. Everyone tells you how lucky you are to be dating this handsome guy with the great job, the tasteful apartment, the quirky sense of humor — the guy who’s also treating you well, showering you with gifts and affection. And you agree, but deep down, you also know that after years of being in this relationship, the conversations are dull, and you just don’t click in bed. Something has to change.
In April of 2015, I coincidentally listened to this podcast by @timferriss (in the foreword of which he, ironically, warns his listeners that it might cause them to quit their job) and decided that the time was now right to leave my cushy position and apartment behind and go travelling for at least six months. One week later, I handed in my 3-months notice in line with German law, and in the following weeks informed friends and family of my plan, cancelled the lease for my apartment, sold lots of stuff on Ebay and shipped the remaining items to my grandmother’s house in Munich.
Since July 29th 2015 I’ve been on the road. I took the trans-mongolian railway from Russia via Mongolia to China, stopped in Seoul and Tokyo and then went to Burning Man festival in Nevada with some friends. October, November, December I spent in Costa Rica & Nicaragua as an Expedition Manager for Raleigh International’s autumn expedition in the region. I celebrated Christmas in Cuba, and New Year’s Eve and Carnival in Brazil. I then went on to explore Colombia, sail to Panama, visit friends in Bolivia, go hiking in the Atacama desert in Chile, travel to Buenos Aires and Patagonia, and visit Machu Picchu in Peru. In May I went back to the United States for Further Future Festival and a meditation retreat in Wisconsin, of all places. I’ll be travelling for another month or so before returning home to Germany and then, most likely, settling in San Francisco.
In the past year I have written in irregular intervals about things that happened on the road, stuff that made me stop and think. They originally appeared on my blog; I’m republishing them here on Medium.
This post originally appeared here on August 11 2015, in a slightly different version.
