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Alon Chen joined Google in 2006 at 23, with no marketing experience and no connections at the company. By 28 years old, he was a CMO\u2014overseeing marketing for Israel and Greece, building a $2 billion product line across 30 markets, pulling in a highly six-figure salary and a seven-figure equity package.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By most people\u2019s standards, he had made it absurdly early\u2014and he says getting there was \u201ceasy,\u201d too. Not because of mentors, politics, or any formal promotion track. In an exclusive interview with Fortune, Chen says he just ignored every rule he was given.<\/p>\n
\u201cClimbing up was fairly natural and easy,\u201d he tells Fortune, \u201csimply because I just disregarded all the status quo and the rules and realized what\u2019s the right thing to do, and went all the way with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chen\u2019s not all talk either: When a senior team at HQ blocked his plans to launch Google Partners internationally, Chen launched it anyway\u2014in foreign languages, in foreign markets, without telling anyone in North America. \u201cOnce we proved it was extremely successful, then they came and asked us, \u2018Oh, can you also launch it in North America?’\u201d <\/p>\n
Likewise, getting a promotion was simply a matter of demanding it ahead of schedule.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Google told him promotions take 2 years\u2014he got his in less than 1<\/p>\n
At Google, the general rule of thumb was to wait at least two years before applying for a step up\u2014he says most employees accepted that timeline without question. Chen ignored it entirely, went to his manager within a year, and made the case impossible to refuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just told my manager, listen, I know this is a year thing. Look what I\u2019ve been able to achieve. It\u2019s way more than anyone else. We\u2019re going to put me up for promotion now.\u201d She did.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have all these rules, we have all these benchmarks, we have all these processes,\u201d Chen says. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen for most of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for high-achievers, he adds, they\u2019re almost just a formality. Especially when, like him, you\u2019re pulling around 12-hour days and have the results to back up your demands for early progression. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be like me, promoted more.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCorporate America can put you in these frames that discourage you,\u201d he adds. But he says the one\u2019s who will be most successful \u201cactually just ignore these and say, \u201cI\u2019m going to do my own thing and take risks, internally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the end, he took his own career advice literally, opting to become his own boss and do his own thing: With a seven-figure equity package on the table and a career most people would guard with their lives, he handed in his notice\u2014and walked away with zero financial regrets.<\/p>\n
Before Google, he was running a thriving business at 15 while in high school<\/p>\n
Chen didn\u2019t suddenly wake up one day as a rule\u2011breaking Google executive. Long before his C\u2011suite title, he\u2019d already been forced to think like a founder. Growing up in a \u201clow middle-class small town south of Tel Aviv,\u201d his father had a motorbike accident, which left them financially struggling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to write code when I was 12, and every year I had to change my computer\u2026 the software I used to write was not able to run because it needed more memory,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut he couldn\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So at 15, he went straight to the importers and negotiated for parts so he could upgrade his computer himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my first entrepreneurial adventure,\u201d he adds. \u201cI started selling computers for thousands of different SMBs, throughout my time at high school\u2026\u00a0 this turned into a very big business.\u201d<\/p>\n
His next venture took a different shape entirely. Chen became the digital officer for an LGBT activism nonprofit, building one of the most pioneering advocacy websites across Europe at the time. It was that experience\u2014not a computer science degree, not a corporate internship\u2014that he says caught Google\u2019s eye and landed him his first role there in 2006. \u201cBack then, that was very innovative,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
Given that background, it\u2019s perhaps less surprising that the golden-ticket job at Google eventually started to feel like a \u201cgolden cage.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he handed in his notice, his family thought he was \u201ccrazy\u201d. His Iraqi-Jewish mother, he recalls, was particularly alarmed\u2014ironically, she inspired the idea for his next venture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Financially, he\u2019s worse off as a startup founder\u2014but he has zero regrets<\/p>\n
The concept for Tastewise, the AI food and beverage intelligence platform he went on to build, came directly from the family WhatsApp group, where his mom would message every Thursday asking what dietary phase everyone was on before spending a day cooking traditional dishes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She saw dinner logistics. He saw a lightbulb moment\u2014and a gap in the market that the world\u2019s biggest food companies hadn\u2019t yet solved: predicting what people actually want to eat before they know it themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today, the startup\u2019s technology is used by giants like PepsiCo, Nestl\u00e9, Mars, Kraft Heinz, Campbell\u2019s, and Givaudan, and over half its clients are Fortune 100 firms. It has raised more than $71 million in funding.<\/p>\n
Financially, he freely admits he\u2019s not ahead of his Google days. \u201cNot yet,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m still building, and I\u2019m all in in the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
But given his equity stake, a future Tastewise transaction would likely cement him as a multimillionaire several times over. And he doesn\u2019t waver when asked whether walking away was worth it. \u201cIt didn\u2019t matter,\u201d he says of the seven-figure equity he left behind. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like it was not a consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to wake up in the morning, like \u2018this is not enough\u2019\u2026. I loved my job. I loved my colleagues. I was extremely happy with my achievements. It was just not mine\u2014not my idea, not my baby. There\u2019s so much satisfaction in creating something out of nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
#ExGoogle #CMO #quit #sevenfigure #job #28says #promoted #easy #broke #rules<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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