Sometimes, the biggest setbacks in your career don't look like setbacks at all.
One of the most striking examples is the story of Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of AI search company Perplexity.
He came from a lower-middle-class Tamil family and narrowly missed admission to IIT Madras Computer Science by just 0.01.
Later, he was rejected by MIT.
Today, the company he co-founded, Perplexity, has reached a valuation of around $20 billion.
That journey says something important about careers in technology:
Your starting point is important. Your trajectory is more important.
🎯 Missing IIT CSE by 0.01 Didn't Define His Career
For many students in South Asia, getting into IIT CSE can feel like the ultimate definition of success.
A tiny difference in an entrance exam score can completely change someone's academic path.
But missing one university or one program doesn't mean you've missed your opportunity to become exceptional.
What matters is what you do afterward.
A university can give you:
A strong peer group
Professors and research opportunities
Access to networks
A structured learning environment
But it cannot automatically give you:
Curiosity
Persistence
Problem-solving ability
Engineering judgment
The ability to build
The ability to adapt
Those have to be developed.
🚫 MIT Rejection Wasn't the End Either
Getting rejected by a prestigious university can feel devastating, especially when you've spent years believing that admission to a top institution is the gateway to a successful career.
But technology is unusual.
The industry often gives you multiple paths to prove yourself.
You can demonstrate your ability through:
GitHub → Projects → Research → Open Source → Internships → Startups → Products → Users
The path isn't always:
Top university → Top company → Success
Sometimes it's:
Curiosity → Skills → Experiments → Failure → Better skills → Opportunity
🤖 AI Is Creating New Career Paths
The story is particularly interesting because it happened during the explosive growth of AI.
The technology landscape is changing extremely quickly.
A student today can access resources that were difficult to obtain even a decade ago:
Open-source AI models
Cloud computing
Free programming courses
Research papers
GitHub
AI APIs
Developer communities
Open datasets
Global collaboration
You don't need to wait until you graduate to start building.
You can start today.
A university degree can teach you fundamentals.
But building real things teaches you how those fundamentals interact with reality.
💻 What Software Engineering Students Should Learn From This
If you're a CS or Software Engineering student, don't measure your future only by your university name or current CGPA.
Instead, ask yourself:
- Can I actually build?
Don't just collect certificates.
Build:
APIs
Web applications
Automation tools
AI applications
Developer tools
Distributed systems
Data pipelines
Open-source projects
A working project teaches you far more than a tutorial you've watched five times.
- Do I understand fundamentals?
AI tools are powerful, but fundamentals still matter.
Learn:
Data Structures & Algorithms
Operating Systems
Computer Networks
Databases
System Design
Programming Languages
Software Architecture
Mathematics and Statistics
Frameworks change.
Fundamentals compound.
- Can I solve problems independently?
One of the biggest differences between a beginner and an experienced engineer isn't how many programming languages they know.
It's how they approach an unfamiliar problem.
When something breaks, don't immediately search for the answer.
First ask:
What exactly is happening?
Then:
Why is it happening?
Then:
How can I verify my hypothesis?
That debugging mindset is incredibly valuable.
- Don't be afraid of rejection
Rejected from a university?
Keep going.
Rejected from an internship?
Keep going.
Rejected from a job?
Keep going.
Your career is not decided by one admissions officer, recruiter, professor, interviewer, or examination result.
A rejection is an event.
It isn't an identity.
🌱 Your Current Position Is Not Your Final Position
Maybe you're studying at a university that isn't globally famous.
Maybe your CGPA isn't perfect.
Maybe you don't have an internship yet.
Maybe your GitHub looks empty.
Maybe you're still learning Python.
None of these permanently determine where you'll end up.
The important question is:
Are you becoming significantly better every year?
If the answer is yes, you're moving in the right direction.
🚀 The Lesson I Take From This Story
The most valuable part of this story isn't the $20 billion valuation.
It's everything that happened before that number.
Missing an elite university by 0.01.
Being rejected by MIT.
Continuing to learn.
Building expertise.
Entering a rapidly changing field.
Taking risks.
And eventually building something valuable enough that millions of people use it.
That's the part students should pay attention to.
Because the technology industry doesn't only reward where you started.
It rewards what you can eventually do.
Don't obsess over the door that closed.
Build something that makes another door open. 🚀
What do you think?
Is university prestige still one of the biggest factors in a software engineer's career, or are skills and projects becoming more important?
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