{"id":4375,"date":"2026-08-03T15:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T15:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/?p=4375"},"modified":"2026-08-03T15:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T15:21:08","slug":"i-got-fired-twice-before-i-turned-30-it-was-the-best-thing-that-happened-in-my-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/?p=4375","title":{"rendered":"I got fired twice before I turned 30. It was the best thing that happened in my career."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6a68e71254f987526177aa3c?format=jpeg\" height=\"1400\" width=\"2128\" alt=\"Alex Stephany headshot\"><figcaption>Alex Stephany says getting fired twice made him a better CEO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">Courtesy of Alex Stephany<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul class=\"summary-list\">\n<li>Alex Stephany was fired from roles as a lawyer and a consultant.<\/li>\n<li>The experiences were terrifying, and he worried he didn&#8217;t have the skills he needed to succeed.<\/li>\n<li>When he became an entrepreneur the difficulties of being unemployed helped him get ahead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with<\/em> <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/alexstephany\">Alex Stephany<\/a><em>, founder of<\/em> <em>Beam. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was always a good student, but when I <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/oxford-grad-couldnt-get-job-pet-sit-avoid-paying-rent-2025-4\">graduated from Oxford<\/a> and entered the workforce, I immediately felt like a fish out of water. <\/p>\n<p>One of my first weekends working as a lawyer, I went on a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/how-to-plan-corporate-retreat-successful-inspiring-team-building-2024-1\">corporate retreat<\/a>. I remember feeling that everyone else in the room was much better suited to the work of being a lawyer than I was.<\/p>\n<p>Two years later, when my contract was up, I wasn&#8217;t surprised that my employer didn&#8217;t renew it. I tried my hand at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/america-top-management-consulting-firms-list-2026-1\">management consulting<\/a>, but even in a different job, I felt ill at ease in the corporate world. I was fired from the consulting role after about four years.<\/p>\n<p>That was quite scary. I had been really successful in life as a student, but I worried I was ill-suited to adulting. At Oxford, everyone became a doctor, lawyer, banker, or consultant \u2014 if I couldn&#8217;t <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/sam-altman-career-advice-2020-1\">succeed in those careers<\/a>, I worried I wouldn&#8217;t succeed at all.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"8f1c4d82-2f76-4875-b431-b25f3450f933\" data-toc-id=\"8f1c4d82-2f76-4875-b431-b25f3450f933\">A smartphone unlocked new career options for me<\/h2>\n<p>I was lucky that I could go home and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/lived-with-parents-adult-now-neighbors-benefits-2026-7\">live with my parents<\/a>. I didn&#8217;t have children to support. Even so, I had some really dark moments in the months after I was fired. I just didn&#8217;t know what to do with my life. Being fired not once, but twice, felt like proof that I was bad at adulting.<\/p>\n<p>It became worse as I entered my 30s. I was doing some <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/working-multiple-freelance-jobs-businesses-2025-9\">writing work<\/a>, but I was embarrassed to be underemployed at this stage of life. When friends wanted to catch up, I worried about being the object of their pity.<\/p>\n<p>During that time, I wasn&#8217;t spending much money. Because of that, I got a smartphone late. Once I had it in my hands, however, I saw it was going to transform everything. I started going to tech events and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/how-to-get-a-job-at-a-startup-2020-10\">applying to startups<\/a>. I would walk into rooms feeling shy and embarrassed, but force myself to ask people for coffee. That&#8217;s when my <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/got-fired-from-job-deserved-it-2024-1\">life started to change<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"dd8c4e18-132d-4308-a09d-4f9b983e6f30\" data-toc-id=\"dd8c4e18-132d-4308-a09d-4f9b983e6f30\">I became CEO, then founded my own company<\/h2>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to downplay how traumatic and upsetting being fired was. But looking back, I can see how being fired was a catalyst for my career. Now, when I&#8217;m asked about the people who helped me, I name those bosses who fired me from roles I wasn&#8217;t good at.<\/p>\n<p>I got hired in the startup space and eventually became the CEO of JustPark, an app that connects Londoners with parking. In 2017, I founded Beam, which uses AI to better empower social service workers. We have about 200 employees worldwide, and the technology is used in five countries.<\/p>\n<p>Years of being underemployed forced me to build resilience and adaptability that have served me well as a CEO. People who have only been successful in life aren&#8217;t suited to work in a startup, because you&#8217;re constantly failing when you try to get something off the ground.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"f4ead096-9edf-4ef1-8302-0666898807d8\" data-toc-id=\"f4ead096-9edf-4ef1-8302-0666898807d8\">I&#8217;ve found success in social entrepreneurship<\/h2>\n<p>Today, I know that I&#8217;m not fundamentally bad at being an adult. I&#8217;m just not wired for a corporate, institutional role. That makes sense, because I&#8217;ve always been a bit of a rebel. Entrepreneurship is a much better role for me.<\/p>\n<p>While the average tech CEO might strive to be like Elon Musk, billionaires aren&#8217;t my role models. My family always taught me that successful people are those who help others, and that&#8217;s who I grew up admiring. My great-grandfather was a businessman who helped Jews resettle in London before World War II. He was a social entrepreneur before that, as a term \u2014 and I&#8217;m proud to follow in his footsteps.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-original\">Read the original article on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/got-fired-twice-started-ai-company-2026-8\">Business Insider<\/a><\/div>\n<p><em>Source: <a href='https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/got-fired-twice-started-ai-company-2026-8' target='_blank'>Read the original article on www.businessinsider.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Stephany says getting fired twice made him a better CEO. Courtesy of Alex Stephany Alex Stephany was fired from roles as a lawyer and a consultant. The experiences were terrifying, and he worried he didn&#8217;t have the skills he needed to succeed. When he became an entrepreneur the difficulties of being unemployed helped him [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,3],"tags":[11,29,33],"class_list":["post-4375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-share-suggestions","category-technology","tag-impact-tsla","tag-signal-avoid","tag-stage-stage-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureknowledge.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}