Tech Explained: Here’s a simplified explanation of the latest technology update around Tech Explained: US Indian Tech Professional Quits Meta to Launch AI Startup in Simple Termsand what it means for users..
“Leaving wasn’t easy. Meta was comfortable”
A US Indian tech professional quit his job at Meta to launch his own AI startup, after learning about coding on YouTube.
Ruchir Baronia traced his AI entrepreneurship journey back to coding experiments he carried out as a school student.
He learned to code through YouTube tutorials and spent hours building simple voice applications in his bedroom.
Ruchir revealed that these early phone-based projects, which responded to spoken commands, laid the foundation for his career.
He told Business Insider: “I had just learned to code from YouTube. My apps were getting downloads, and I was addicted.
“I would run home from school, drop my backpack, and open the reviews before starting my homework.
“It was the first time I saw that code written alone in my bedroom could reach people I would never meet.”
That early understanding of scale stayed with him through college. Ruchir studied engineering and business at the University of California, Berkeley, before joining Meta’s engineering team.
At Meta, he worked on a fintech team where the culture resembled a high-growth startup more than a traditional corporation.
Engineers were given significant ownership and trust early on, which accelerated his learning and exposed him to building and shipping products at a global scale.
Side projects, including a phone-based AI experiment that later went viral, began attracting attention from hundreds of businesses.
Recognising an unmet need, Ruchir decided to leave Meta despite the security of a high-paying role and stock-based compensation.
He admitted: “Leaving wasn’t easy. Meta was comfortable, offering an incredible salary, stock refreshers, and interesting problems.
“Everyone told me to stay another year, vest more equity, and build more credentials.”
“The rational move was to wait. I kept asking myself, if I waited, would I regret it? The window felt finite. Every month I stayed was a month these businesses were not being served.”
Ruchir Baronia raised capital, relocated from California to New York, and founded Frontdesk, where he now serves as chief executive.
The startup automates business calls and customer interactions, employing former Big Tech professionals who left established careers to build AI systems.
Frontdesk reflects Ruchir Baronia’s long-standing belief that technology created in a bedroom can reach far beyond its origin, offering practical solutions for businesses and a blueprint for AI entrepreneurship.