We're cofounders who left Amazon to build our own startup. We learned the hard way why Big Tech habits don't always translate.

Two former Amazon employees share what they had to unlearn to build an AI startup. The biggest challenge was working with a frugal mindset and limited resources. AI tools helped them save costs, speed up research, and reduce the need to scale head count. This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Shalini Aggarwal, a 50-year-old CEO in San Jose, California, and Andy Ratsirason, a 37-year-old CTO. The two left Amazon at different times and reconnected as cofounders of Tenfali, an AI startup. They share the main processes they had to unlearn in order to successfully grow their startup. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Shalini Aggarwal: Andy and I began working together in 2015, after I relocated to the US from India. He was a dev engineer, and I worked on the product and program execution side. Andy Ratsirason: I joined Amazon for the first time in 2014 because I wanted to be part of the Silicon Valley ecosystem. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I tried to tailor my career to suit that goal. I left Amazon, came back in 2020, and left again in 2023. After I left for the last time, I made multiple pivots in founding a startup. I realized I needed someone else to join my team. Shalini started showing up regularly on my LinkedIn feed, liking and commenting on posts about startups and taking risks, so I reached out to her. She had just left Amazon, and we reunited to cofound Tenafli. Aggarwal: We quickly realized that we took a lot of systems and tools for granted when we were in an enterprise company. The startup world is completely different ; here, we have to build from scratch, and there was a lot about our mindset we had to unlearn. The AI boom made leaving Amazon easier Aggarwal: I stayed at Amazon until 2024, and my last nine months were spent working on AI projects, specifically on music recommendations. Ratsirason: In 2023, I was almost three years into my return to Amazon, and I had a choice: either stay comfortable with those Big Tech paychecks or take a leap and launch my own startup . I submitted my resignation in February and then began to think about what was next. Aggarwal: My decision to leave Amazon was more of a gradual process. During the COVID pandemic, my father retired, and we lost my mom. I could see how lonely my father was, and the biggest challenge was how to fill his days. That planted the seed. Through working on personalized AI recommendations, I thought of a product that could serve as an AI companion for older adults, providing personalized recommendations and scheduling activities based on their typical daily routines. My 50th birthday was coming up, and the AI boom was happening; if I didn't take the leap then, I knew I would never. In September 2024, I put in my two weeks' notice and left Amazon. We had...

Preview: ~500 words