Going through a divorce is never easy, and financial uncertainty only adds to the stress. In 2021, Venus Wang found herself in exactly that situation — newly divorced, unemployed and with less than $10,000 in savings.
“I took a really hard look at my personal finances,” Wang told CNBC Make It.
“I started to realize that up until that point, I had managed my personal finances really terribly.”
At 37, Wang described her divorce as a major wake-up call. She had prioritized raising her daughter over building a career, but she suddenly realized that securing a stable future for both of them meant making a change.
Wang reentered the workforce in 2021 with a role at Google, overseeing software quality and operations. But stability wasn’t her end goal — she was focused on growth. That mindset led her to pivot into AI, where she nearly tripled her income, reaching close to $1 million in just a few years.
But, it wasn’t easy for Wang to turn what had seemed impossible into reality.
Wang grew up in Kaifeng, a small city in central China, where societal expectations pushed her toward a traditional path. In 2013, she moved to the U.S. to earn her MBA at Duke University. Just two years later, she landed a six-figure job as a sourcing manager in the hardware division of a Seattle-based tech company.
Wang took time off to raise her daughter, but when her marriage ended, she was suddenly faced with an uncertain financial future.
Divorce isn’t cheap — most Americans spend between $15,000 and $20,000 on legal fees and related costs.
On top of that, Wang relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area where the average home sells for $1.1 million, according to Realtor.com.
With expenses piling up, life didn’t cut her any slack — but instead of letting financial stress hold her back, she found a way to grow her income.
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Wang’s new job at Google came with a big paycheck, around $300,000 a year, a figure that towers over the average American salary of $66,622, according to the Social Security Administration.
