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Ex-Google employee quits 9-5, returns to Punjab to grow organic food: ‘I wanted a different life’
Mantaj Sidhu left his Google job in Dublin and returned to Punjab to build an organic farming business.
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What would make someone walk away from a Google job in Dublin, a career in advertising and a compensation package of around ₹83 lakh? For Mantaj Sidhu, it was the realisation that the corporate ladder he was climbing did not lead to a life he wanted.
After nearly five years at Google, Sidhu quit in 2022 and returned to Punjab. He eventually turned to organic farming, co-founding Gill Organics, a farm-to-table venture that grew out of his concerns about the food his own family was consuming.
“I could clearly see what the summit of that ladder looked like, and I realised that even if I put my head down and climbed all the way to the top, it wasn’t a peak I actually cared to reach,” Sidhu told HindustanTimes.com.
‘I was running up the wrong hill’
There was no single day when Sidhu decided he had had enough of corporate life. Instead, the feeling grew over time.
He joined Google Hyderabad in 2018 and later moved internally to its Dublin team, where he worked on Google Ads partnerships and business strategy for leading UK advertising agencies. The pandemic delayed his move to Ireland, and he worked remotely with the Dublin team for almost two years before moving to Dublin in late 2021.
By June 2022, Sidhu had started seriously considering a return to India. He resigned a few months later.
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Looking at people ahead of him in the corporate world also made him question where his own career was headed.
“Their daily routines, pressures and lives weren’t fundamentally different from mine, they just had bigger paychecks,” he said.
The realisation forced him to reconsider what he was working towards.
“The turning point was recognising that I was running up the wrong hill,” Sidhu said.
Why did he choose organic farming?
Returning to Punjab was not simply about leaving Google. Sidhu wanted to work on something more tangible and closer to his own life.
His years in Europe had also changed the way he thought about food and agricultural practices. After returning to India, he became increasingly concerned about the lack of transparency around chemicals and pesticides used in everyday produce.
Initially, the concern was personal. He wanted his family to have access to food he could trust.
“I simply wasn’t willing to let my family continue consuming food without knowing its long-term health toll,” Sidhu said.
That concern eventually became a business idea.
Sidhu experimented with different approaches before developing Gill Organics into a farm-to-table venture in Punjab. His corporate experience also proved useful as he moved into a completely different field.
“I wanted to step into the real world, apply my skills to solve a tangible problem, and derive a sense of achievement from genuine impact rather than a title or paycheck,” he said.
What happened after he left Google?
Sidhu’s compensation at Google was around €100,000, including bonuses and shares, which was roughly ₹83 lakh at the time.
His business has since generated revenue exceeding what he earned as a salary. However, his personal income remains lower after operational expenses and reinvestment.
For Sidhu, the decision was never only about money.
“At Google, earning that package meant trading nearly half of my waking life to serve someone else’s vision,” he said. “Today, the personal income in my bank account may be leaner, but the time, energy and focus I invest belong entirely to me.”
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The return to Punjab came with its own challenges. After living in Dublin, Sidhu had to adjust to traffic, bureaucracy and the everyday difficulties of building a business in India.
Still, he says he has never seriously questioned his decision to leave Google.
“I look back with immense gratitude for the incredible corporate chapter I had, but even greater conviction that I closed it at the exact right moment,” he said.
For Sidhu, the move was less about walking away from Google and more about choosing what he wanted to work towards next.
