Prachi Sharma: Turning Grief and Reinvention Into a New Chapter of Creation

• Spent 20 years at Oracle before being laid off in April 2026, while continuing to navigate the grief of losing her mother.
• Founded The Sapling Press, a children’s publishing imprint now home to four young authors across California and India.
• Published Manju: A Life of Grit, Grace and Greatness, a tribute to her mother, alongside a second book, Paws Around the World.
• Published four independent  research papers as she explores potential careers in AI safety and evaluation.
• Draws strength from her mother’s resilience and the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Swami Sarvapriyananda.
• Believes children should be raised to create rather than consume, protecting imagination in an AI-driven world.

1. What was your childhood like and how did it shape who you are today?

I grew up with a strong mother and an honest father. My mother faced real hardships in her life, and watching her navigate them with quiet strength taught me perseverance before I even had a word for it. That quality has shaped nearly every major decision I’ve made as an adult — including, in a strange way, the biggest one of this past year. When I lost my job in April 2026, the same instinct that got my mother through hard times kicked in for me: instead of standing still, I built something. That something was rooted entirely in her — The Sapling Press exists because of the woman who raised me.

2. What does a typical day in your life look like?

Most days start with reading and editing stories from the young authors at The Sapling Press. Somewhere in between, I’m scrolling LinkedIn for job opportunities as I explore a pivot into AI safety work. The rest of the day belongs to my son — walking our dog together, reading books, doing kitchen food experiments, library visits, and games. Evenings are cooking and feeding the family. It’s a mix of building something new professionally and staying fully present for my son — both matter equally right now.

3. Tell us about your professional journey and how you got to the position you are in today.

I spent 20 years at Oracle, most recently as Principal MTS in Fusion HCM Analytics, working on the reporting layers used across the Fusion HCM product. In April 2026, I was laid off — during a period when I was still processing grief after losing my mother in 2022.

That loss had already redirected part of my life toward writing. I published a short-story collection about my mother, Manju: A Life of Grit, Grace and Greatness, and a second book, Paws Around the World. When my six-year-old son watched me write and asked to write his own book, something bigger began — I founded The Sapling Press, now home to four young published authors across California and India.

In parallel, I’ve been publishing independent research on LLM safety, exploring a pivot into AI safety and evaluation work, building on two decades of analytics experience in enterprise HR technology.

4. Name one or several people you admire in history and tell us why.

My mother is my first answer — always. Her strength and perseverance through real hardship shaped who I am more than anyone else. Beyond her, I admire Swami Vivekananda — his teachings on relentless self-belief and action (“Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached”) have stayed with me since childhood, and I still find myself returning to his words when I need to push forward. I also deeply admire Swami Sarvapriyananda — his ability to make ancient Vedantic philosophy accessible and relevant to modern life has shaped how I think about resilience and purpose.

5. Have you had any mentors along the way?

My father was my earliest mentor — he taught me science and made it genuinely interesting, sparking a curiosity that carried through two decades of enterprise analytics work. More recently, Swami Sarvapriyananda’s teachings have become a guiding influence — his wisdom keeps me grounded, especially through the upheaval of this past year: losing my job, and continuing to process losing my mother. His way of making Vedantic philosophy practical for everyday life has shaped how I approach uncertainty in this new chapter.

6. What has been the greatest challenge in your journey and how did you overcome it?

Losing my mother in 2022 is, without question, the greatest challenge I’ve faced. She wasn’t just my mother — she was my grounding, my comfort, my sense of home. When she was gone, all of that went with her, and for a long time I didn’t know how to stand upright again.

What eventually helped me overcome it wasn’t overcoming it in the traditional sense — it was channeling it. I started writing about her, and that writing became Manju: A Life of Grit, Grace and Greatness. In the process of trying to hold onto her, I built something that gave me a new kind of ground to stand on. My son becoming a young author, The Sapling Press taking shape — none of it erases the loss, but it gave the grief somewhere to go. I didn’t get over losing her. I built something out of it instead.

7. How do you balance your work and personal life, and what’s one thing you enjoy doing in your free time?

Balance, for me, is less about perfect division and more about staying present in each moment — whether I’m editing a young author’s manuscript, scrolling LinkedIn for the next opportunity, or reading with my son at the library. The days blur together across work and family, but that’s intentional; I’ve built this chapter of my life so the two overlap rather than compete. For myself, specifically, I carve out time to read — I’m currently reading Everything But Money, and that quiet reading time is entirely mine.

8. What do you think is the biggest concern for global youth today, and how could it be solved?

I’m fully supportive of AI as a technology, but its impact on creativity — especially in children — is what worries me most about the future. Kids are growing up with tools that can generate answers, art, and ideas for them before they’ve had the chance to struggle through creating those things themselves, and that struggle is where creativity actually develops.

But if I’m honest, the deeper concern underneath that is our loss of humanity itself — our misuse of nature, our disconnection from each other. You see it every day if you read the news. I think the solution starts small: raising kids who are taught to create, not just consume — to write their own stories, ask their own questions, and stay curious about the world and the people in it, rather than defaulting to what a screen or an algorithm can hand them.

9. Which are some ways in which you are creating a positive change in the world?

In my own way, I’m trying to preserve creativity and humanity in kids. The Sapling Press gives children a real platform to become published authors — to sit with a blank page, imagine something, and see it through to a finished book, rather than have something generated for them. It’s a small act, but it’s a deliberate one: protecting the muscle of imagination in the next generation, one child author at a time.

10. What is a mantra that you live by and how does it help you on a daily basis?

“This too shall pass” is my mantra. It helps me move through hard times a little more easily, knowing nothing — good or bad — is permanent. And it works both ways: it keeps me grounded during good times too, reminding me not to hold on too tightly to any single moment, whether it’s a hard one or a joyful one.

11. If you were to give advice to young people aiming to follow your professional path, what would it be?

I’d tell them the same thing I’ve built The Sapling Press around: don’t wait for permission to create. My six-year-old son didn’t wait until he was “old enough” to write a book — he just started. If you have a story, a question, an idea, put it into the world in whatever form you can, at whatever age you’re at. The traditional path — years of credentials before you’re allowed to contribute — isn’t the only path. Sometimes the most meaningful work starts with a single sentence, a single small act, long before you feel ready.

Prachi Sharma’s story is a reminder that reinvention rarely follows a straight line. After two decades at Oracle, years of grief, and the uncertainty of starting over after layoff, she found new ways to create. She built a publishing imprint for young authors, explored the future of AI through independent research, and carried forward a mother-son legacy rooted in the belief that no one needs permission to begin. For all of us, her journey is proof that the most meaningful chapters often start not with certainty, but with the courage to write the first sentence anyway.