By Kanishka Singharia
Publication Date: 2026-08-07 12:09:00
Artificial intelligence-based search engine startup Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas’s academic journey was a roller-coaster ride. However, he never gave up and instead used each disappointment as motivation to keep learning and moving forward.
Srinivas, 32, is now an inspiration to anyone facing rejection in competitive examinations, job applications, or other areas of life.
Srinivas, who made history by becoming India’s youngest billionaire and debuted on the M3M Hurun India Rich List 2025, could not secure admission to the Computer Science programme at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and narrowly missed switching branches by just 0.01 CGPA. He instead joined the Electrical Engineering dual-degree programme.
Rather than allowing the setback to define his future, he continued studying machine learning and artificial intelligence independently while completing his engineering degree.
Academic setbacks continued
The challenges did not end there. Srinivas has revealed that he was initially refused admission to a machine learning course because it was believed that students from Electrical Engineering would struggle with the subject.
He later applied for a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but his application was unsuccessful. Instead of giving up, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he focused on research in deep learning, reinforcement learning, computer vision and generative AI. During his time there, he also…
