Picture this: You're a recent MBA grad, working at Bain, and you're already wondering if spending your life in conference rooms is really the move. Sound familiar?

That was Susan Wojcicki in 1998. She needed some extra cash to cover her mortgage (because hello, Bay Area housing prices), so she rented out her garage in Menlo Park for $1,700 a month to two Stanford nerds working on some "search engine" project.

Those nerds? Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The project? Google.

But here's what's wild—this wasn't some lucky accident. According to BCG's recent study, nearly half of all workers are dealing with burnout, and consultants are at the top of that list. Susan's story proves what we all suspect—our skills are worth way more outside consulting than inside it.

Let's be real—Susan's journey started exactly where most of us are right now. Brilliant, over-educated, and completely confused about what actually makes us happy.

She did the whole academic overachiever thing: Harvard for undergrad (history and literature because why not), then a master's in economics, then the inevitable MBA at UCLA Anderson. Classic consultant path, right?

The best part? She didn't even take a computer science class until her senior year at Harvard. One class. And it "changed how I think about everything." Meanwhile, we're over here acting like we need to become coding wizards before we can work in tech.

After business school, she bounced around the usual spots—Intel marketing, Bain & Company, some other consulting gigs. You know, that phase where you're collecting "good resume experiences" while your soul slowly dies inside.

One Reddit user in r/consulting perfectly captured this feeling: "I'm three years in and already feel like I'm just optimizing other people's dreams instead of building my own." That was Susan in 1998, and according to McKinsey's own research, people experiencing burnout are six times more likely to leave their jobs within six months.

The Garage Decision That Changed Everything

So here's where it gets interesting. Susan's living in Menlo Park in 1998, probably eating ramen and wondering if her MBA was worth the debt (again, we've all been there), when these two Stanford guys ask to rent her garage.

Most people would be like "hard pass, weirdos." But Susan? She saw $1,700 in monthly income and was like "yes please, take my garage."

Six months later, those "weirdos" offered her a job as Google's first marketing manager. Employee number 16. At a company that was literally operating out of her garage.

The consulting brain in her was probably screaming "THIS IS NOT A TRADITIONAL CAREER PATH," but she took the leap anyway. Best career decision ever? Absolutely.

How Consulting Skills Built a Platform Empire

Here's where our story gets really good, because Susan didn't succeed despite being a consultant—she succeeded because she was a consultant.

Her first challenge at Google? Figure out how to make money from a search engine. Classic consulting problem: "We have this thing, but how do we monetize it?"

Most people would've panicked. Susan? She applied every framework she'd ever learned. Market analysis, competitive positioning, user behavior patterns—all that stuff we learned in our first year that actually turned out to be useful.

The result? AdWords, AdSense, Google Analytics. You know, just the entire infrastructure that generates hundreds of billions in revenue. No big deal.

Fast forward to 2006. YouTube is this scrappy video platform that's growing like crazy, but nobody really knows if it's legit or just another flash in the pan (remember Friendster?).

Susan did what any good consultant would do: She analyzed the hell out of it. Market size? Exploding. Competition? Minimal. Strategic fit? Perfect complement to Google's ad business. Risk? Manageable.

Her recommendation? Buy it for $1.65 billion.

Everyone thought she was insane. "It's just people posting random videos!" they said. Today, YouTube alone is worth over $100 billion. Consulting frameworks for the win.

Susan's story isn't just inspirational content for LinkedIn—it's a literal blueprint for getting out.

Step 1: Recognize Your Superpowers Your consulting skills aren't just PowerPoint skills. They're platform-building skills. Susan used the same brain that helped Fortune 500 CEOs to build a platform that serves billions of people.

Market analysis → Identifying massive opportunities others miss Framework thinking → Building scalable systems and processes
Problem-solving → Creating user-obsessed products Strategic planning → Long-term platform development

Step 2: Position Yourself at the Opportunity Susan joined Google when it was 16 people in a garage. Not because she could predict the future, but because she was willing to bet on something with massive upside potential.

The pattern: Don't jump straight to CEO. Build credibility through consistent value delivery first.

Step 3: Apply Consulting Methodology to Platform Building When Susan became YouTube CEO in 2014, she basically applied consulting methodology to platform scaling. Within a year, YouTube hit 2 billion monthly users watching a billion hours daily.

The secret sauce? She treated YouTube like a massive consulting project. Understand the stakeholders (creators), identify growth opportunities, build scalable systems, and optimize for long-term value creation.

Here's what's happening in the consultant exit space right now that you need to know:

The data is getting wild. McKinsey's own research shows that burned-out employees are six times more likely to leave within six months, and consulting attrition rates at top firms have been fluctuating between 15-20% annually.

But here's the really interesting part—according to venture capital research, 25% of unicorn founders in key markets have management consulting experience. Companies like Airbnb, Kayak, and DoorDash were all founded by ex-consultants who applied their problem-solving skills to platform building.

The numbers are staggering: McKinsey alone has 34,000 alumni working at over 15,000 organizations worldwide. That's not brain drain—that's proof that our skills work everywhere.

Translation: The market is finally catching up to what we've suspected all along—our skills are worth more outside consulting than inside it.

The real question isn't whether you have the skills to build something massive. You do. We all do.

The question is: What's your garage moment going to be?

Susan rented hers to two Stanford nerds and accidentally became one of the most powerful people in tech. Your moment might look different—maybe it's joining an early-stage startup, maybe it's building something yourself, maybe it's applying your consulting skills to an industry that desperately needs them.

But here's what I know for sure: Staying in consulting because it's "safe" isn't actually safe anymore. The world is changing too fast, and the opportunities are too big. Susan proved that consultants aren't just advisors—we're future platform builders.

P.S. Susan once said: "Ask yourself what you think the world will look like in 10 years, then work backwards." So here's my question: In 10 years, do you want to still be optimizing other people's businesses, or do you want to be building the platforms that shape how the world works?

Your garage moment is closer than you think.

Hit reply and tell me what platform you'd build if you knew you couldn't fail. I read every response.

Forward this to that one friend who's been talking about leaving consulting for two years. They need to see this.