When I left Zenefits, I believed the company would resolve its compliance issues, but the situation changed drastically after my departure.

I went from having $600 million in the bank and 1,500 employees to starting over from zero, but I was determined to rebuild what we had started at Zenefits.

When we had product-market fit at Zenefits, we found that our ideas worked exceptionally well, leading to rapid growth and a strong market pull for our product.

I felt crushed after failing to secure funding, but I decided to use our remaining resources to continue pushing forward and meet with customers to understand their needs better.

The real problems at Zenefits stemmed from business and financial challenges, not the controversies that the media focused on.

In 2016, I was ousted from Zenefits in what was essentially a palace coup, and the press painted me as a tech villain.

With dwindling funds and a working product, I was advised to join Y Combinator, which I initially hesitated to do but ultimately saw as a necessary step to keep the company alive.

The partnership came together when I realized my heart wasn't in venture capital; I wanted to build. I felt lost after leaving Dropbox, where I was part of a product that 400-500 million people were using.

The strategy proposed by the board after my resignation was to have David step in as CEO temporarily, but I felt that a clean break was necessary. I didn't intend to start another company in the HR space at first, but it became clear that David was not making Zenefits work and was driving the company into the ground.