A man, working as a senior manager with Google, was recently fired as part of the company's cost-cutting move. But instead of giving up, he chose to establish his own company. The man, Henry Kirk, is also being supported by a number of other employees who were laid off in a similar fashion.
Mr Kirk, who worked for eight years at Google, was one of the 12,000 employees let go by the company. Mr Kirk stated that he has given himself and his team six weeks to set up a design and development studio in New York and San Francisco.
He took to LinkedIn to share his story. Mr Kirk intends to set up the company before the 60-day timeframe for layoff notification ends in March. "I have 52 days left. I need your help....I've always been a big believer that hard work and results will get you far in life . While this event may place doubt in that belief, it is my experience that these life challenges present unique opportunities," he said in a LinkedIn post last week.
He stated that six ex-Google employees are also joining him in the venture. "Today, I'm taking a leap forward and turning this tragedy into an opportunity. I'm teaming up with 6 outstanding #xooglers to shape and own our futures. We're starting a design & development studio in NYC and SF. Yeah, it's probably the worst time ever to do this . But that's the exciting and challenging part."
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In their startup, they wish to offer design and research tools for other companies' apps and websites, engineering projects for organisations without the required knowledge and assistance in growing and obtaining finance for startups.
"Seven of the finest ex-Googlers are fired-up, eager to research, design, and develop the most scrappy to ambitious software projects (and we'll do it quickly)," Mr Kirk added.