New Delhi, June 29 -- A former Google employee who earned almost $1 million in a year has explained why he chose to leave the technology giant and start his own artificial intelligence (AI) company.

In an as-told-to essay published by Business Insider, 41-year-old Yousuf Imran, a former account executive from the San Francisco Bay Area, said he was well paid at Google but felt "FOMO (Fear of missing out)" as AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic began offering stock packages that could be "life-changing."

"I earned nearly $1 million last year as an account executive at Google, but I felt some 'FOMO' around the AI boom," he wrote. He said that owning a stake in his own business eventually became more appealing than the financial secu...