Indian-origin techie quit Meta to launch AI startup, learnt coding from YouTube: 'Was addicted'

Ruchir Baronia is the founder and CEO of Frontdesk, an AI startup based in New York that automates business calls and customer interactions. (Image credit: LinkedIn)

An Indian-origin tech professional based in New York, who left his job at Meta to launch an AI startup, has recently revealed that his tech journey began with learning how to code through YouTube tutorials as a school student.

Ruchir Baronia told Business Insider that his entry into technology began with early phone-based coding experiments carried out in his bedroom, where he built simple voice applications that responded to spoken commands. "I had just learned to code from YouTube. My apps were getting downloads, and I was addicted," he said. "I would run home from school, drop my backpack, and open the reviews before starting my homework. It was the first time I saw that code written alone in my bedroom could reach people I would never meet."

That early understanding of scale stayed with him through college. Baronia studied engineering and business at the University of California, Berkeley, and then joined Meta’s engineering ranks.

'Meta accelerated learning curve'

There, Baronia worked on a fintech team, where the environment was closer to a high-growth startup than a traditional corporation, with significant ownership and trust given to engineers early on. The experience accelerated his learning curve, exposing him to building and shipping products a global scale.

Moreover, what began as side projects, including a phone-based AI experiment that later went viral, started to resemble viable commercial tools as hundreds of businesses reached out to him. Seeing an unmet need, Baronia decided to leave Meta despite the security of a high-paying role and stock-based compensation.

'Meta was comfortable, offered an incredible salary'

"Leaving wasn't easy," he told Business Insider. "Meta was comfortable, offering an incredible salary, stock refreshers, and interesting problems. Everyone told me to stay another year, vest more equity, and build more credentials. The rational move was to wait. I kept asking myself, if I waited, would I regret it? The window felt finite. Every month I stayed was a month these businesses were not being served."

So he raised capital, relocated from California to New York, and founded Frontdesk, now serving as its chief executive. The startup automates business calls and customer interactions, and employs former Big Tech professionals who similarly walked away from established careers to build AI systems.