A former employee of hybrid primary care company Carbon Health is among the laid-off tech workers who went on to found "revenge startups," The Wall Street Journal reported.
Jen Zhu, who was a senior manager of program development at Carbon Health before her position was eliminated last year, co-founded health IT software startup Maida Health, according to the April 10 story. After her dismissal, she "didn't have an excuse anymore" not to go after her entrepreneurial dreams, she said. Her company got $100,000 from Day One Ventures through its Funded, not Fired program.
After Google parent company Alphabet said it was laying off 6 percent of its workforce in January, the story noted, angel investor and podcast host Jason Calacanis tweeted: "Now is the time…you've got nothing to lose and a huge severance package to underwrite your revenge startup!"
"A discontinuity in someone's career trajectory … can be a jolt," Meghna Virick, PhD, an associate dean of undergraduate programs at San Jose (Calif.) State University who has studied post-layoff entrepreneurs, told the Journal.