Mackenzie Young, 26, lives in White Lake Township, Michigan, and quit his job as a software engineer at Google in May 2025 to pursue a career in music. Business Insider has verified his identity. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Coming out of college, I was really gung-ho about what I was doing in software and was excited to learn more. Then I got involved in the electronic music scene and fell in love with it and the people.
Growing up, I played piano, violin, guitar, and other string instruments. I had this preconceived notion about how music works. Electronic music completely flipped that upside down.
Electronic music is you making sounds with your computer. You’re beep-booping. I went to an electronic music show in Tacoma, Washington, called the Thunderdome by Excision, and was like, “This is what I want to do.” So I started taking steps toward that goal, spending more time on it and involving myself in this community.
I love software, but music’s been a huge part of my life, even before software. My decision to quit Google came as I wasn’t really putting in the time I needed with software, so something had to give.
Taking a buyout
Eventually, there was a buyout offer with a nice severance package, so I applied. This felt like a good opportunity for me to leave gracefully.
I’m like, “I’m 26. If there’s a time to go for something very difficult that I’m passionate about, now is the time.”
I had a unique opportunity: My dad, who lives on a farm, has extra space, so I moved in with him and saved a lot of money. That’s a huge privilege. More importantly, it was this idea of spending more time with my family.
Software is still something I enjoy and my trade. I worked on it when I moved home, implementing software solutions to problems my parents had in the family business. At the same time, with how fast AI is moving, coding is becoming obsolete.
I’m progressive about AI. This isn’t something I talk to as many musicians about because I’ve gotten so much pushback on it. Pretty much every serious musician I know is like, “AI is ruining this industry,” and “If you support AI music, this is the death of art.” They’re visceral reactions. I don’t use AI to make music. I take pride in the fact that it’s a very human art, and I’m imparting my own taste.
In 10 years, we might be looking at a world where most popular musicians work with AI to come up with their ideas. It might be making innovative music.
The most interesting time
We live in the most interesting time to ever be alive, bar none. This is a time of insane transformation, and we get to witness that. I feel lucky that we can, and so I’m going to do what I enjoy.
One of the cool things about AI is that it democratizes creativity. It allows people to focus more on the things that they really, truly want to spend their time doing, and abstract away the parts they don’t enjoy.
My approach to music is methodical. I’m not doing this by the seat of my pants, but it takes time to develop an understanding of how it all works. I’m taking a class on musical entrepreneurship for people who want to become professional musicians.
My long-term goal is to tour as an artist. The first step is to find a way to make this financially viable. As an artist, especially in the beginning, it’s unreasonable to expect to make money the same way famous people do.
The world requires this kind of scrappy nature to get by. Everyone has to carve their own path. It has to come from within.
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