There was nothing wrong with my career in diplomacy.
It was structured. Respected. Predictable in the way serious careers are meant to be. From the outside, it looked like a sensible long-term path.
But slowly, it became clear that what I was learning and what I wanted to build were starting to diverge.
Leaving diplomacy was not about rejection.
It was about direction.
Diplomacy teaches restraint, not ownership
Diplomacy is about representing systems larger than yourself. You operate within frameworks, protocols, and long timelines. Impact exists, but it is indirect.
That work teaches patience, perspective, and how to navigate complexity. Those skills stay with you.
What it does not teach is ownership.
Entrepreneurship, by contrast, forces ownership immediately. Decisions have consequences you feel quickly. There is no institutional buffer. You live with the outcomes.
At a certain point, I realised I wanted to build something where responsibility was clearer and feedback was more direct.
The decision was gradual, not dramatic
People often imagine career shifts as bold moments.
This was not that.
It was a series of small realisations. Conversations that stayed with me. A growing discomfort with passivity. A desire to move from advising and representing to building and executing.
By the time the decision became visible, it had already been made internally.
Why building with Diipa mattered
Building something with Diipa Khosla was not about proximity or convenience.
It was about alignment.We shared a way of thinking about work, responsibility, and long-term value. The idea of building indē wild emerged from lived experience and clear gaps we both saw, not from ambition alone.
Working together meant trusting each other’s judgment while being honest about limitations. That mattered more than any previous title.
What entrepreneurship demanded that diplomacy did not
The transition was not easy.
Entrepreneurship demanded speed where I was used to deliberation. It demanded clarity where nuance was rewarded. It demanded making imperfect decisions and standing by them.
There was no hierarchy to hide behind. No process to defer to. Just the question of whether something worked or didn’t.
That was uncomfortable at first. It was also energising.
Letting go of certainty
One of the hardest things to leave behind was certainty.
Diplomacy offers a clear structure. A defined progression. Entrepreneurship offers none of that.
Instead, it offers uncertainty paired with agency.
You trade stability for responsibility. Predictability for meaning. And you learn quickly that confidence is built through action, not credentials.
Building indē wild changed how I think about impact
Impact in diplomacy is measured over years, sometimes decades.
Impact in building a company is visible in smaller, more immediate ways. Products in people’s homes.
Teams growing. Systems improving.
Neither is better. They are simply different.
For me, this kind of impact felt more tangible at this stage of life.
On partnership and risk
Leaving a conventional path is rarely just a professional decision.
It affects relationships, finances, and long-term plans. Building a company with your spouse amplifies that risk.
We approached it with clear eyes. Not romanticism. Not optimism alone.
What made it possible was shared values, honest communication, and a willingness to adapt when assumptions proved wrong.
What I learned from the shift
If I had to distill the transition into a few lessons, they would be these:
Titles do not build confidence. Competence does.
Stability is not the same as security.
Meaning comes from responsibility, not recognition.
Leaving diplomacy did not mean discarding what I learned there. It meant applying those lessons in a different arena.
Final thoughts
If you’re considering a career shift, especially one that looks illogical on paper, the real question is not whether it makes sense to others.
It’s whether the path you’re on is still teaching you what you want to learn.
For me, leaving diplomacy was not about walking away from something.
It was about walking toward something worth building.
And building it alongside my partner made the risk real, but also deeply intentional