Well, you’ve made the PE lifestyle sound pretty rewarding, why are you leaving?

My job is a cushy job. I get paid well, I get the instant credibility, I get great administrative resources, I get to meet a lot of interesting people and I get to travel quite a bit. On the flip-side, as an Associate, even in a smaller firm, you are always answering to some higher authority, there are lots of general and philosophical disagreements on administrative and operational processes. Furthermore, I feel like the learning curve has decreased – this might be more due to my laziness than anything else. All-in-all you are not your own boss and you have not created something yourself, your way.

 

At a startup you have to do everything on your own. For me, this will be a challenge as many of the basics were taken care of by others – incorporation of a new Company, day-to-day office staff management, technology back end solutions, etc. It’s an even harder challenge considering that I am an ABCD and thus my Hindi is pretty rotten. I think that one of the toughest parts of the transition will be working alone instead of in a social environment (at least at first).