Google techie had only $10K after a brutal divorce—Now she earns nearly $1M; Here’s how she did it

Venus Wang, divorce wasn’t just an emotional rupture—it was a financial and personal reckoning. “I remember the personal identity shift was a very big thing for me—to transform from someone else’s wife to a single mom,” she told CNBC Make It. At 37, she was unemployed, caring for her daughter full-time, and staring at a bank balance of just $10,000.

Before her divorce, Wang had built a steady six-figure career in procurement at a major tech firm. But with no job and a child to raise, she realised she needed a plan—and fast.

The Decision to Start Over

Wang moved to San Francisco and reentered the workforce at Google, overseeing software quality and operations for Gmail and Google Drive. The job, paying around $300,000, provided stability, but she quickly realised she wanted more. “I had to make a really drastic change in terms of my mindset,” she said. “This is not only just about me anymore. This is also about me taking care of my daughter’s future as well.”

Betting Big on AI

Feeling stagnant in her role at Google, Wang set her sights on artificial intelligence. In 2022, she pivoted to a team working on large language models, believing AI would be the future. “I started to realise that I was not pushing myself enough. I didn’t feel like I was growing enough,” she said.

Her gamble paid off. Over the next three years, she held three different AI-related roles, each time increasing her salary. In 2024, she left Google to join a startup, then moved again to another major tech company. These calculated shifts helped