For Mantaj Sidhu, leaving a well-paid Google job in Dublin was not a decision he made overnight. After nearly five years with the company, he began questioning what he was working towards and eventually decided that a bigger salary was not enough reason to stay. In 2022, Sidhu resigned from Google and returned to Punjab. He later co-founded Gill Organics with his cousin, Dr Baljeet Singh Gill, turning his concerns about the food his family was eating into a business that connects urban families with farmland and fresh produce.According to recent media reports, Sidhu’s compensation at Google was around €100,000, including bonuses and shares, equivalent to roughly ₹83 lakh at the time. He had joined Google Hyderabad in 2018 before moving internally to its Dublin team, where he worked on Google Ads partnerships and business strategy for leading UK advertising agencies.
Why Sidhu decided to leave Google
By June 2022, he was seriously considering returning to India.
Sidhu’s decision was shaped by what he saw around him. While working in the corporate world, he began looking at the careers and lives of people ahead of him and questioning whether that was the future he wanted. “Their daily routines, pressures and lives weren’t fundamentally different from mine, they just had bigger paychecks,” he said in an interview. The pandemic had delayed his move to Ireland. He worked remotely with the Dublin team for almost two years before moving to Dublin in late 2021. By June 2022, he was seriously considering returning to India and resigned a few months later.
From Google Ads to farming
After spending years in Europe, Sidhu says his thinking about food and farming changed. He became concerned about the chemicals and pesticides used in everyday produce and wanted his family to have access to food whose source and growing process they could understand.“I simply wasn’t willing to let my family continue consuming food without knowing its long-term health toll,” he said. That personal concern eventually became the basis for Gill Organics. Sidhu partnered with his cousin, Dr Baljeet Singh Gill, to develop a farm-to-family model in Punjab. As per The Better India, the venture was built around giving urban families a more direct connection with the food they consume, including information about how and where their vegetables are grown.The business operates through what it calls its Cloud Farm program. Under the model, customers are allocated a dedicated plot of farmland for a season. They can select the vegetables they want grown, while farmers cultivate the crops and deliver the produce to their homes.According to The Economic Times and various media, the program was offering seasonal memberships of six months, priced at ₹35,000 for customers in Chandigarh and Ludhiana and ₹30,000 for those in Patiala. The report said the membership included home delivery of fresh produce twice a week.
Families can see where their food comes from
Sidhu partnered with his relative, Dr Baljeet Singh Gill, to develop a farm-to-family model in Punjab.
The idea goes beyond vegetable delivery. Customers can visit the farm, pick vegetables themselves and spend time at the farmhouse. The experience also includes activities such as introducing children to where their food comes from, observing birds, fishing and learning about traditional Punjabi implements such as the charkha and madhani.Gill Organics allocates small plots to urban families and can grow up to 18 seasonal vegetables for them. The farm uses cow dung and in-house vermicompost as fertilisers, along with sprinkler irrigation and micro-greenhouses.
From one family’s concern to 145 families
The business has grown beyond Sidhu’s original aim of providing food for his own family. According to The Better India, Gill Organics currently serves more than 145 families across Chandigarh, including Panchkula, Ludhiana and Patiala. The venture has also faced practical problems. Customer retention is one of them, particularly because customers have to adjust to seasonal changes in what can be grown. Logistics, operations and communication have also remained challenges.
His business now earns more revenue than his Google salary
Leaving Google did not mean that Sidhu immediately replaced his earlier income. According to Hindustan Times, Gill Organics has since generated revenue exceeding what Sidhu earned as a salary at Google. However, his personal income remains lower because the business requires operational spending and reinvestment.“At Google, earning that package meant trading nearly half of my waking life to serve someone else’s vision,” he said. “Today, the personal income in my bank account may be leaner, but the time, energy and focus I invest belong entirely to me.”Returning from Dublin to Punjab also brought its own difficulties. Sidhu had to adjust to traffic, bureaucracy and the challenges of setting up and running a business in India. But four years after leaving Google, he says he does not regret the decision.