- Aaron Neyer joined Google in 2021 as an engineer after several years of self-discovery and nomadic living.
- In January 2023, he was one of over 12,000 employees laid off. He felt a sense of relief and openness.
- Neyer now leads a nonprofit, is involved with local government, and is pursuing a second master's degree.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Aaron Neyer, executive director of the nonprofit Woven Web and a former developer relations engineer at Google based in Boulder, Colorado. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I studied computer science in college and interned at Google after my junior year. I received a full-time return offer, but I wanted to travel and felt like going the startup route would give me a lot more flexibility.
My dad passed away around the time I graduated. I moved to San Francisco for a job, but a couple of months later, I realized I didn't want to confine myself full-time and quit.
I spent the next four years being basically nomadic — doing the free-spirited hippie thing. During that time, I lived off savings from my time working in tech, life insurance that I received when my dad passed, and a few wise crypto investments that I made.
I attended a lot of different gatherings such as music festivals, dance retreats, and meditation retreats, connecting with all kinds of people. It was a period of self-discovery as well as a time of finding healing around the grief from losing both of my parents, as my mom had died when I was younger.
I wanted to participate in the world more effectively
After a while, I decided I wanted to go back to participating in the world in a way that I felt to be more effective. I got a master's degree from Naropa University in ecopsychology to ground my philosophy around how change can happen and how we can create more connection in the world.
I missed the intellectual rigor, creativity, and financial stability of the tech world, so I applied to rejoin Google and started working there in May 2021 as a developer relations engineer. My work was 60% about coding and 40% about community relationships.
At Google, we were all able to use our "20% time" to work on something outside our main roles, and I spent mine doing work having to do with connecting people and climate. I was part of a grassroots climate community within Google called Anthropocene working on how we could focus more on climate solutions inside Google. I also worked on a little project called Project Nature, trying to bring ecopsychology ideas into Google's processes and products, as well as Flourish, a project in Google's startup incubator Area 120 aimed at helping people stay connected to one another.
After Flourish was cut from Area 120, I tried to find a way to get a head count and work on it full-time as an internal project, but it became clear to me that the tightening budget and constructs of Google weren't going to support that.
Just two weeks later, in January 2023, I was laid off. I felt almost a relief and a sense of openness. I suddenly had this blessing of a healthy severance to use to build what I wanted outside of Google.
I've been working on building community and strengthening connection
From March through May, I intermittently job-searched and almost joined an early-stage startup, but nothing quite landed. I wanted to do something meaningful and satisfying. I also traveled a bit around the US, did a lot of reading and writing, and participated in a lot of community engagement. I have a thriving community here in Boulder and enjoy being in nature, learning, and growing.
I became the executive director of a nonprofit I joined in 2022 called Consciousness Hacking Colorado and led its relaunch as Woven Web. We're an organization about facilitating harmony between technology, society, consciousness, and nature, and we place a lot of emphasis on helping people communicate and collaborate more effectively.
I also started exploring political engagement and ran for Boulder City Council. While I didn't win my race, the city council appointed me to the Human Relations Commission. It's been going great. I've been starting some conversations about how we address tensions in our community, especially in relation to the Middle East conflict, and we're beginning to make proposals about how we can bring about better dialogue in our city.
I'm also pursuing a second master's degree, this time in creative technology and design at the University of Colorado Boulder's Atlas Institute. It's been really fun growing my tech skills again in a creative way, with coding and generative art.
In October, Woven Web coordinated a 10-day event to connect people across different communities and ultimately create more coherence in Boulder. This also served as a launching point for us to raise some serious philanthropy and grant funding so that I can pay myself to be full-time executive director.
The path I'm on is beautiful
I don't have too many regrets in life. There are so many pathways, but the one that I'm on feels really beautiful. I feel I've lived a pretty full life since being laid off. I've been really excited to have plenty of space away from a core working environment, and now I'm really happy to be back to having a lot of structure in terms of Woven Web and school.
I'll go back into some form of full-time work at some point, but I'm not rushing to any decisions. For now, I feel stable enough to keep prioritizing learning and creating community, putting a lot of the gifts I received at Google to good use.
I bike past the Google office a lot here in Boulder and often feel a tenderness in my heart. I've even had tears well up before. For all of the company's faults, there are many things that it does well, like the beautiful community of people who work there. I have so much love for many of the people.
If you took an unconventional career path before or after Big Tech and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].