Career Advice About LinkedIn

I’m looking for some guidance on a career decision I’m wrestling with. I joined LinkedIn about 4 months ago, and I have 8 years of experience overall. Last week, I had a discussion with my manager about the promotion cycle. We agreed on a goal: to achieve a Staff Engineer promotion by December 2026. He’s supportive and gave me some suggestions — mostly around participating more actively in meetings, increasing visibility among directors and above, and focusing on both tech depth and influence. I’m committed and confident that if I focus for the next 1.5 years, I can achieve this. Here’s my dilemma: I've always wanted to start a startup. Over the years, I’ve saved about ₹90L (this includes ESOPs from a soon-to-IPO company) that I’ve earmarked for future startup investment. I'm starting to get a few ideas now, but I’m relatively weak at networking and need to build that skill. The challenge is: If I focus fully on the promotion, I might lose momentum on the startup front. If I dive into the startup, it’ll impact my chances for promotion. Should I quit job? but my startup idea itself not validated. I'm feeling torn between two dreams — climbing the tech leadership ladder or building my own thing. What would you do in this situation? Any advice on how to balance both, or on deciding which path to prioritize?

I am early in the career and have managed a few events in the company, so some execs Sr. Manager, Director and Sr. Director recognize me. Whenever I am around them, I get blank and they are the first one to say Hi, how are you doing? Any high-level tips to get over it? I am also not sure what to talk to them about but probably some company highlights, team things or very general fun things.

Context: We are currently in the process of planning for the next half, and we have a few projects at hand currently being proposed. I've been at the company for around 1.5 years, but recently switched tracks within the same team 6-months ago. My work so far has been mostly focused on onboarding (ie : low-medium complexity). I'm looking to get more scope for my next project. This aligns with feedback I received that I should take own a more complex component, to move to the next level. Question: I'm wondering what criteria I should consider when choosing a project / what should I optimize for? Is scope / impact the biggest factor to consider here? I also want to avoid taking on work thats "too complex" or sets me up for failure.