Final 12 months, Nicole Landis Ferragonio and Joe Luchs determined to go away Amazon and launch an AI startup.
They’d been planning the transition for months, however for Ferragonio, the tipping level was Amazon’s five-day return-to-office mandate in January 2025.
“It raised some questions on how a lot company you actually have in Massive Tech and what could be attainable on our personal,” she stated.
Luchs pointed to the speedy rise of “game-changing” AI applied sciences, which he felt there was a restricted window to capitalize on. By September, they’d each resigned and began an AI information refinery firm.
Over the previous 12 months, I’ve interviewed greater than a dozen Individuals who just lately launched companies, generally quitting their jobs to pursue them full-time. Their experiences mirror a broader spike in entrepreneurship: For the most recent full 12 months of knowledge, by way of March, Individuals filed practically six million new-business functions — the very best whole for any 12-month interval since information assortment started in 2004. However in contrast to the pandemic-era startup increase, this wave is being formed by a distinct set of forces, together with the speedy rise of AI, return-to-office mandates, and a more durable job market.
The forces driving Individuals into entrepreneurship
For some employees, entrepreneurship has grow to be a approach to chase alternative — significantly within the AI area, the place speedy advances are opening doorways for brand spanking new enterprise ventures.
In 2024, after eight years at Google as a tech lead, Jason White determined he wished to lean extra into AI. Later that 12 months, he accepted an AI machine studying engineer function at Meta. However in 2025, he thought of going even additional: launching an AI startup to assist households handle their funds. He resigned from Meta in September.
For others, the enchantment is extra about reassessing company life. A slowdown in hiring and promotions, in addition to high-profile layoffs in industries like tech, has made entrepreneurship really feel much less dangerous.
Final June, Taylor M. LaSane confronted a profession crossroads: keep in her six-figure supervisor role at Google, or take a buyout and go all-in on her profession teaching enterprise. She stated uncertainty about her job safety at Google made it simpler to decide on the latter.
“Massive Tech layoffs are taking place in all places, so it wasn’t like staying there was essentially any extra secure than leaving,” she stated.
After becoming a member of Microsoft as a senior software program engineer in 2022, David Chong struggled to get promoted. By 2025, he was nonetheless in the identical function and felt better calls for on productiveness and dealing from the workplace.
“The message from management appeared to be that we wanted to ramp up and alter as a result of instances had been altering,” he stated.
Chong resigned from Microsoft in September to begin an AI gross sales agent enterprise.
Whereas some entrepreneurs have left their company gigs, others have began companies out of necessity, after irritating job searches. As of March, greater than 1 / 4 of unemployed Individuals had been searching for work for 27 weeks or extra, up from about 18% three years earlier.
Since being laid off by Wells Fargo in April 2025, Robin Peppers Daniel has struggled to safe full-time employment. She stated she’s now spending much less time making use of for jobs and extra time constructing her net design and skincare companies.
Extra employees are going solo — but it surely’s not with out dangers
The entrepreneurship increase underscores the trade-offs of self-employment: better flexibility and autonomy, but in addition better monetary uncertainty.
Final 12 months’s American Job High quality examine discovered that 46% of self-employed employees — who account for 14% of the US workforce — had “high quality jobs,” in comparison with 39% of employed employees. The report outlined “high quality jobs” as “these providing truthful pay and advantages, secure and respectful workplaces, alternatives for development, a voice in choices, and sustainable schedules.” The findings had been primarily based on a Gallup survey of greater than 18,000 US adults performed in early 2025.
Alyson Isaacs is accustomed to the enchantment of entrepreneurship. After incomes her bachelor’s diploma in 2021, she “fully drained” her financial savings on a startup that did not work out for her. She went on to hitch Meta as a product supervisor in 2022, however by no means gave up on her entrepreneurial ambitions. Final July, she resigned from Meta to focus full-time on her new startup, an “agentic AI answer for private wellness.”
“There are methods you may be entrepreneurial,” Isaacs stated of working in Massive Tech, “but it surely’s very a lot not the identical.”
Learn extra about individuals who’ve discovered themselves at a company crossroads
Beginning a brand new enterprise is dangerous. Solely a 3rd of private-sector US companies created in March 2013 had been still operating a decade later, in accordance with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Many entrepreneurs aren’t blind to those dangers — and took steps to arrange their funds earlier than beginning their companies.
Earlier than leaving Meta, Jason White stated he saved sufficient to cowl a 12 months of bills. Chong stated he felt comfy leaving Microsoft as a result of he had a number of years’ value of financial savings and no dependents to help. Isaacs stated she lived effectively under her means — together with dwelling in a inexpensive space — to construct a monetary cushion.
White stated that his Meta colleagues reacted to his leaving with a mixture of shock, help, and jealousy. He stated some had thought of beginning their very own companies however hadn’t, citing the monetary dangers. However White did not need to let these considerations maintain him again.
“On the finish of the day, I need to take the swing,” he stated.
