A 22-year-old software engineer with Google, who has an investment portfolio worth over Rs 1 crore for retirement and brokerage accounts, as well as two houses, has revealed that he lost about Rs 67 lakh by investing in cryptocurrency. It is implied that he purchased the digital currency using borrowed money.
Ethan Nguonly from Orange County, California, began investing in the stock market with the help of his parents before he was a teenager, as reported by CNBC. However, he now considers this to be his ‘biggest financial mistake’.
22-year-old in his ‘biggest mistake’: Overview
The Google employee, Ethan Nguonly, has a package of around USD 194,000 (Rs 1.60 crore approx). This includes a base salary of USD 134,000, a 15 percent yearly bonus, USD 30,000 in restricted stock units, and an additional on-call pay of approximately USD 10,000 per year.
Nguonly was investing with the assistance of his parents. He understood the importance of investments and being ‘economical’ with money from a young age. Reflecting on his ‘biggest financial mistake’, he revealed that between November 2021 and June 2022, he lost about USD 80,000 (approximately Rs 67 lakh) after investing in cryptocurrency.
Google Employee loss: InsightsÂ
According to sources, he had invested significantly in bitcoin and ethereum, along with a few hundred dollars in other cryptocurrencies like dogecoin and shiba inu. As the price of bitcoin surged, he borrowed an additional USD 15,000 to invest.
As a result, Nguonly incurred significant losses when the cryptocurrency market turned. Additionally, he disclosed that his losses included USD 50,000 in unrealized gains and USD 30,000 in invested funds.
“I was investing with some money that I didn’t necessarily have. Once the crypto market kind of reversed, my losses were amplified,” Nguonly added to the publication.Â
Google layoffs
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, recently announced layoffs in its recruiting team. The exact number of affected employees is unknown, but reportedly, hundreds were laid off. Some employees took to LinkedIn to share their experience.
Prior to the layoffs in the recruiting group, Google had announced the layoff of 12,000 individuals in January this year. A few months later, Google terminated employees in its Waze mapping app department as they started integrating the application into Google Maps products. Chris Philips, who heads the Geo unit of Google, informed the employees about the layoff decision via email.