Simone Lini’s Post

I’ve left Google. It was truly an amazing ride. Many things happened in the last five years: I was part of the launch of a new travel vertical, Things to do, and I saw its impact on our partners and the industry. Launching a Travel product during Covid was... interesting. I got promoted, did a Product Management rotation (and passed the PM hiring committee), worked on one of my favorite products of all time (Google Flights) and finally kickstarted our aviation sustainability initiative on Contrails. It’s still one of the best companies when it comes to the quality of the colleagues and the perks, but I realized it was just not the right company for me anymore. I want to prioritize learning over comfort, and this means stepping outside. I am not entirely sure of what I’ll do next. I know a few things: - I’ll take December off and mainly focus on hiking, flying small planes and reading. I’m very fortunate that I can do this, and I’ll enjoy every second of it.  - I want to work more on AI (how original :). I’m no beginner but there’s a lot I don’t know. I’ll never become a data scientist, but I’ll start from refreshing linear algebra and go all the way to LLMs and low-code.  - I’ll probably go back to entrepreneurship. I have some ideas I’m working on (and my friend Giorgio Patrini and his amazing 10xStudio team are helping me put together some prototypes) If you have any advice on cool things to read, I’d love to hear it. If you’re looking to start a company and you’re both a good software engineer and manager, I’d be very happy to brainstorm ideas. Thanks to all of my colleagues and partners for these five years - learning from you and spending time together was a true privilege.