New Delhi: A 22-year-old marketing professional left his high-paying job of about Rs 2.7 crore at an AI startup after 12 hour workdays sapped his personal freedom and emotional well-being. Min, who also manages a digital content platform, described in an Instagram video how he dealt with the ’12-hour grind’ and gradual loss of ‘small freedoms’.
Daniel Min who served as Chief Marketing Officer at Cluely in New York, said in an Instagram video that he walked away from an annual salary of over $300,000 (about Rs 2.7 crore). Min led the marketing team at Cluely for just eight months before leaving.
Min said that his resignation followed months of internal dispute. He had joined the company in May 2025 after graduating from the Wharton School with a degree in Marketing and Operations Management. According to Min, within months of joining the company, the pressure to always perform and ‘grind’ began to take its toll.
According to Min, what he first believed was the ideal way to build a career made him miss his small freedom. “I thought working all day, grinding 12 hours a day was what you should be doing when you are at the age of 21,” Min said in the Instagram video. However, his job made him miss his small freedom. “But I started to quickly miss small freedoms like getting dinner with my friends or surprising my brother for his 12th birthday,” he said.
Min said the job, which he once enjoyed gradually became monotonous. As the head of marketing, he felt forced to give his all to the company leaving little time for personal life. “In the beginning, the work was super fun,” he said. “But over time, slowly, it started to get a little bit more monotonous,” he said.
Min’s dissatisfaction was sensed by Cluely CEO Roy Lee who eventually called him aside to check in. Min said that the conversation with Lee marked a breaking point. “I mustered up the courage to tell Roy that I had been thinking for a while of leaving,” Min said adding to breaking down while speaking to him.
Min said that Lee responded with empathy, pushing him to choose his happiness over his profession. Min said that working at Cluely for literally 12 hours every day was not the ladder he intended to climb. “It broke me to realise that being at Cluely, this little brotherhood that I spent literally 12 hours a day living with, was not the ladder that I wanted to climb,” he said.
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