For Jason Shen, leaving Meta was not a story of walking away from a bad salary or a failed career. The money was substantial, the company was prestigious and the path ahead could have been financially rewarding.

The problem was that he no longer wanted the life that came with it.

Shen, 40, left Meta in June 2023 after earning about $250,000 a year in cash compensation through salary and bonus. Before making the exit, he had already begun coaching startup founders on the side. That work eventually became Refactor Labs, the coaching business he turned into a full-time venture in 2024.

His decision came after nearly three years at Meta, where he worked as a product leader. His career had already included two years at Etsy and the experience of building a technology company that was later acquired by Facebook.

Why did Jason Shen leave Meta?

Shen’s reason for leaving was less about one dramatic breaking point and more about what his working days had gradually become.

While he valued the people around him, his routine increasingly revolved around meetings, reviewing documents, reorganisations and repeated changes inside the company. The work had become stressful, and he began questioning whether he wanted to spend another two decades in the same kind of environment.

“The money was great,” Shen said, but the compensation was no longer enough to make the longer-term trade-off feel worthwhile.

There was another realisation that mattered just as much. Some of the work Shen found most satisfying was not actually at the centre of his job.

He enjoyed mentoring colleagues, running workshops and helping people improve. Those experiences pointed him towards executive coaching, a field that appeared more closely aligned with the kind of work he wanted to spend his time doing.

In other words, Shen was not simply leaving Meta. He was moving towards work he felt naturally drawn to.

He prepared financially before taking the leap

The transition was not made without a safety net.

Shen set aside about $150,000 to support himself while establishing his coaching business. That gave him room to build Refactor Labs without immediately depending on the venture to replace his Meta income.

The business has since developed into a significant operation. Shen told Business Insider that Refactor Labs generated $369,000 in revenue over the previous 12 months. Clients generally work with him through monthly retainers, while founders seeking help with co-founder conflicts typically sign up for three-month packages.

From Big Tech schedule to around 20 hours a week

One of the clearest changes has been the amount of time Shen now spends working.

Despite running his own company, he says his working week is around 20 hours. Much of that time is spent speaking with clients on Zoom, while AI tools assist with administrative work.

The lighter schedule has also created more room for life outside work. Shen has said he now has additional time for family, exercise and creative projects. His evenings can include taking his daughter to the playground or going on a stroller run, and he is also working on a book about ambition and building a meaningful life.

That flexibility appears to be one of the biggest differences between his old career and his current one.

What about the money he left behind?

Shen is aware that staying at Meta could have produced a much larger financial payoff, particularly through company stock.

He believes he could have earned millions more had he remained in Big Tech, but that possibility did not outweigh the years of work required to get there.

“I would have had to grind for that money for years,” he told Business Insider.

His goal is not to reject financial ambition entirely. Shen hopes his business can eventually surpass what he earned in Big Tech while allowing him to keep the freedom he has gained.

That distinction is what makes his career change notable. He did not leave a ₹2.4 crore Meta job because he stopped caring about earning well. He left because he had begun measuring success differently, placing greater weight on the kind of work he enjoyed, the way his days were structured and how much control he had over his time.

For Shen, the bigger question was no longer how much more he could earn by staying. It was whether the extra money was worth the life required to earn it.

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