He underscored that he did not want to stay at the acquiring company, but found it difficult to give up a $60 million pay package as CTO. “I knew that staying at the acquiring company was not for me for the big company reasons you might suspect (lots of politics, things moved slowly, NPC coworkers, etc.), but I found it very hard to give up a $60m pay package.”

He noted that if money doesn’t bring freedom, there is no point in making it. He further stated that it’s difficult to let go of things you worked on for a decade.

He had a ‘Trying to be Elon’ phase:

He reminisced that shortly after leaving his 10-year intense journey, he met over 70 investors and founders in robotics. He presumably believed this as his life’s calling, immersing himself in robotics keeping in mind that the world is going through a labour shortage phase.

As short as two weeks were, Hiremath left and changed his mind about starting a robotics company, shifting his inclination towards humanoids. “It started to dawn on me that what I actually wanted was to look like Elon, and that is incredibly cringe. It hurts to even type this out,” he added.

Break-up and insecurities:

The Loom co-founder revealed that when he shifted his focus away from starting a robotics company, he felt rudderless. With his insecurities mounting to the top, he broke things off with her (ex)girlfriend, ending a two-year relationship of unconditional love. “It was extremely painful, but it was the right call. I needed to fully face myself.”

When his company was touching heights, he felt secure, he started to expect more for himself. He noted that during the first round of lay-offs in his company, he suffered a massive blow.

After the break-up, he noted that he externalised his emotions and climbed a 6800m peak in the Himalayas without any mountaineering experience. “In the earliest stages of trekking into the valley, before altitude sickness, cold, and chronic bronchitis started to settle in, this seemed like the best idea in the world. It wasn’t until every person I met along the way asked how long I had been training for, that it started to settle in how insane what I was doing was.”

In the end, he highlighted that after 4 intense weeks of working for DOGE, he called off his plans to move to DC, and booked his 1-way ticket to Hawaii to focus on himself.

On a positive note, he shared that he is in Hawaii as of now, learning physics, so that he can start a company that manufactures real world things.

Atlassian

Life has been a haze this last year: Vinay Hiremath