I Was Laid Off 3 Times: Why My Career Actually Got Better

From the outside, the trajectory looks clean. Global roles. Ecosystem building. Leadership. But Fola Olatunji-David sat down and told the truth. Three layoffs — all in May, three years in a row. A move back to Nigeria that cut his income to 15% of what it was in England. Triplets. An identity built in public that didn't always match the man living it privately. And through all of it, a question he kept returning to: who are you when you're not wearing any shirt? This is not a highlight reel conversation. It is one of the most honest exchanges we have had on this show — about masculinity, money, contentment, ambition, grief, and what it actually costs to keep showing up when the version of you that people applaud stops feeling like you. Fola is a startup ecosystem builder, former Google and AWS programme lead for Africa, co-founder of Fortworth, and one of the most connected figures in Nigeria's tech and innovation space. None of that prepared him for what life kept handing him. This is that conversation. This is When Everything Changed. CHAPTERS 0:00 Teaser & Intro 1:09 The question: public success vs. private reality 2:15 Three layoffs. Three Mays. One man. 7:52 Was he hiding the struggle? 10:14 The piano inside his laptop bag 16:06 What being a man actually means 21:25 The pressure society puts on men — and the cost 27:19 When responsibility multiplies (triplets and all) 35:00 The emotions he carried alone 40:07 His complicated relationship with money 44:58 One word: contentment 50:27 When ambition meets reality 57:13 Personal ambition vs relative ambition 1:02:23 Grief as a gradient 1:07:08 "I am scared as —" the final truth When Everything Changed is a conversation series about inflection points. The moments when people, organisations, and systems encounter a reality that the old rules can no longer explain. Subscribe for new episodes every week.