31-year-old Harvard grad quit her VC job to cycle in the Olympics: ‘I only made $7,000' my first year but it led to gold

In August, Kristen Faulkner became the first U.S. woman — and the third woman ever — to win Olympic gold in two different disciplines at a single Olympic Games. 

The 31-year-old ended a 40-year-drought for the U.S. by placing first in the women's road race; she also took home the women's track cycling team pursuit gold. Just a few weeks later, she was the highest-placing American rider in the Tour de France Femmes.

And yet just a few years ago, cycling was all but a hobby for Faulkner, who picked up the sport in 2017 when she moved to New York to work as a venture capitalist.

"I needed an outdoors fix," Faulkner told NBC News, recalling how she signed up for an introductory women's cycling clinic in Central Park. 

Faulkner grew up hiking and rowing in Homer, Alaska and competed on the women's crew team at Harvard University, where she graduated in 2016. 

What started as a fun workout quickly turned into a passion for Faulkner, who quit venture capital to commit to the sport full-time in 2021 — a move that she assumed would be a brief detour from her career. 

"I was thinking about doing it for one, maybe two, and then reevaluating," she told New York Magazine's the Cut in a recent interview. 

Instead, Faulkner, who now rides for the American Continental Women Team EF-Oatly-Cannondale, said she's developed an even deeper passion for the sport: the competitiveness, the camaraderie with her teammates, even the constant grind of training. Faulkner, who now lives in Girona, Spain, rides for three hours a day. 

There were times after switching careers when Faulkner felt isolated and uncertain about her future — no one in her family had been a professional athlete, and none of her cycling teammates had made the transition to the sport so late in life, either. But she trusted her instincts. 

"I never regretted it," she told the Cut. "But a lot of my VC peers, my family, my friends, were like, 'Is she having a quarter-life crisis?'"

Leaving a job with six-figure prospects to make $25,000 as a pro athlete

Faulkner didn't jump into her new career without a safety net. 

"My big thing before leaving my job was that I wanted to have a year of savings so I'd be able to support myself," she said. "If I didn't get a contract after my first year, then I would reevaluate." 

Some financial planners recommend saving enough money to cover 12 months of living expenses (rent/mortgage, transportation, insurance, food, debt repayments, etc.) before quitting a job without another one lined up.

In her first year of competitive cycling, Faulkner earned just $7,000. "I couldn't live off that," she said, so she kept her job as an investor at Threshold Ventures, a VC firm based in San Francisco.

Another reason Faulkner wanted to continue working in venture capital was so she'd have at least 5 years of professional experience before taking a hiatus. 

 "I wanted to have credibility in the VC field so that if I ever went back to it, I would be able to say, 'Here's my résumé, here's why I'm employable,'' she shared.

By her second year, Faulkner's cycling earnings jumped to $25,000, and along with her savings, she finally felt ready to take the plunge. 

"I was like, 'Okay, I can be good at this,'" she recalls. "'I have enough financial savings, and I have a résumé to point to.'"

How therapy helped her navigate a major career change

Preparing financially wasn't the only hurdle Faulkner faced in switching careers. 

During an April 2023 episode of  "The Hard Way" podcast, Faulkner said she worked with a therapist for a year and a half to overcome her fear of leaving venture capital. "Emotionally, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but intellectually, I couldn't accept the risk at the time," she said.

Faulkner worried that if cycling didn't work out, she would be "completely broke without a job," and that quitting venture capital meant letting go of some of the goals she had been working toward, like becoming a partner at a venture capital fund by 30.

"It's one thing to leave what you're doing, and it's another thing to leave behind these goals that you've envisioned for yourself for so many years, to just let them go," she said. "There were a lot of risks, and I was terrified."

Leaving a job she loved wasn't easy either. "I didn't want to let my bosses down — they were the best managers I'd ever had," Faulkner said. 

What helped her navigate the emotional toll of quitting her job, she added, was visualizing how future her would feel about the decision. 

"I realized that the worst case scenario wasn't being broke, it was being 80 years old and looking back on my life and being like, 'Wow, I really wish I'd done that,'' she said. "Even if it didn't work out, I knew I would regret it if I didn't try." 

As soon as Faulkner quit, she said, that fear was placed with unbridled optimism. "I felt like my entire life was just a blank canvas, and I could go write anything on it that I wanted," she said on the podcast. "And I can dream up any possibility and make it happen."

Looking ahead, Faulkner has no plans to retire from cycling. She's already eyeing the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and possibly beyond. "If I keep getting better and I'm still enjoying it, I'm not going to stop," she told the Cut.

She's also committed to advocating for equality in women's cycling, noting that while salaries have improved, there's still a long way to go. 

"Most women are making between $60,000 and $80,000 a year, whereas an equivalent man might make $300,000 to $500,000," Faulkner said. "So my goal in my cycling career is to see greater equality before I leave." 

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