Leaving v/s staying in the US: 4 IIT-MIT-Purdue graduates discuss

hi can you quickly introduce yourself yeah hi uh my name is Arun Krishna Das I finished my PhD in uh May 2023 from MIT I did it in the area of computational Acoustics uh in mechanical engineering department and currently work as a senior research engineer at 3M for the last one and a half years in uh doing a little bit of uh AI neuros symbolic reasoning uh and Acoustics for 3M products my name is rajat dander uh I've done my btech and mtech from IIT Madras in 2018 and post that I did my PhD from

Purdue in the field of computation fluid mechanics and currently uh I am the co-founder uh of uara Technologies and we work at the intersection of AI and education hi my name is Raj dander I'm the twin brother of rajat as you can see um I also graduated from Mi Madras 2017 um patch of mechanical engineering and then finished my PhD at MIT in computational science came back to India in 2022 and now along with rajat and shat I'm the third co-founder of viu labs and I'm shat panat I also one of the co-founders of vua

I graduated from MIT in 2022 November and came back to India immediately after uh we we have all known each other since 2012 2013 so almost like 12 13 years now since our undergraduate at I Madras so maybe we can discuss a little bit about our career trajectories and why we decided to do certain things and um maybe you have done things differently than the three of us you are still working in the US after your PhD and we are not so maybe we can anchor our questions around uh our decision to stay back versus

our decision to come back to India so um maybe I can start with both of you you you have been back back to India since last two years do you regret coming back so yeah it has been uh around two and a half years uh since we came back to India and um I would say initially it was it was a bit of a struggle to get used to uh like a lot of things we will discuss about that eventually but right now we are at a stage where things are going quite smoothly and there

is a sense of satisfaction and peace which is there mentally and that is like at a very subconscious level but overall I would say I don't regret the decision of coming back to India at all yeah yeah I would say the same thing so regret is not at all an emotion which is there since the last one and half two years ever since we came came to India it's like we decided Ed to do this and then regret was never never there at all it's like whatever disadvantages or were there or whatever drawbacks were there

you kind of just assume it and uh try to overcome that so yeah among all other feelings regret never came into my mind at all what about you yeah I also don't have regrets that you know if I were to time travel I would take a different decision I don't think so but uh of course there are smaller scale things which I miss uh like cleanliness or uh discipline in the traffic air quality um maybe better quality food things like that which uh are maybe easier to get in more developed places but other than that

overall my decision of coming back to India I have not regretted not not only that I have I'm probably the happiest in my life right now so I I am absolutely making it work out um so Arun you are still working in the US so I have two questions to you if you had come back to India to right after your PhD for maybe doing research or maybe working in a company whatever it was would you have regretted it plus now that you are working in the US let's say you work there for 30 35

years and maybe when you 60 or something would you regret not taking the decision of you know coming back to India so the first question uh yes so I'm uh just to give some like numbers and data I have looked at like so I work in a Fortune 100 company as I mentioned earlier uh similar kind of job in India for a specialized person like me is the area of computational Acoustics which is still respected and and stuff in the US um I don't find similar quality of uh salary here even if you account for

the uh cost parity and differences um I am able to easily save uh individually in excess of like five roughly $5,000 per month uh which is like four lakhs per month um this is after you have certain amounts that go into your 401k that's for your like you know lifetime savings post retire and and insurance and all of those things which which are basically Necessities in the US so that uh kind of tells me it's always going to be a struggle unless I do something like you guys which is a startup and individual uh control

of what you're doing then probably yes uh India could work but uh and then also my wife works in the area of as a data scientist for her it may work I know like Amazon and certain big companies do pay quite a bit uh accounting for the parity differences you can see save quite a bit but I am like a specialized person even though I'm like transitioning into certain of these fields right now so may not be the best fit for me in that in that sense uh and the second question about like staying there

for like 30 plus years would I regret coming back to India I want to like post it in the form of additional yeah additional questions right now I'm sure like say 30 years there that's an excess of close to like uh like individually saving I would say roughly my estimates place like between 5 to $10 million uh that's a significant amount of money for like uh that can like set you on to relax for the rest of your life with your grandkids and stuff and this is basically me enjoying a pretty relaxed work life balance

and everything so good quality of life that sets you on a decent path I know that may or may not be sufficient for certain people who are really ambitious but for a large section of the population that's sufficient uh and the the question I want to POs to you guys is what about the other things I'm not regretting this as of this moment I don't know if I'll regret it in 30 years uh but my wife says so she and I kind of not fight but debate with each other she is someone who wants to

come back to India I'm someone who pulls her away from India uh and the things she says is like family uh food the fact that food as in Indian food is what we like so obviously access then the ability to get people to help in different context that you almost cannot afford in the US you know you cannot afford people who will cook food for you at ,000 per month because that takes a significant amount of your savings away uh and uh these are things which she says which which are very valuable for her but

things which I say is we have a puy quality of life with the puppy is better there uh like you said Road and traffic cleanliness uh because I have like allergies and stuff every time I come to India which I do not experience their air quality index and stuff and diversity of thought this is something which I do not know maybe in India with the current generation it and all of those things it's going to be like possible to have very good of thought but I have a team where one is from the Middle East

one is from China One is from the US one is from India and many are Americans that naturally gives diversity of thought from the fact that they're all born and brought up differently so I wonder whether that will that I will get here I enjoy that like people who tell things like they had fought War they had experienced Wars in Greece or people who said that they have migrated from China and then experienced a lot of troubles to get their green card in the US these are discussions which like enrich your overall thought process so

that's like a question I want to ask you guys like how about uh Pros which my wife said which I keep countering because she's my wife I can counter but the things which I said are like genuine concerns that I have five of those things like what are your thoughts on any of those uh yeah maybe I can uh take one or two of those concerns yeah so uh with respect to help and support from the closed ones I would say that that is definitely a positive and uh how it helped help is that like

let's say as a business you're going to look for let's say a co-working space or or many other things that you want to do there is always a team in India I feel that that helps you uh achieve that particular thing and there is a sense of support that you feel uh for every decision that you are that you are taking and uh another example I can give is that uh recently we move to a new apartment and that whole uh like the entire Logistics of like setting up the furniture and making sure that everything

works functionally then cooking Etc because of the people around that whole process was made so much easier that we could relax and focus on the work and growing our business and this is something which gives me a lot of Peace whenever I'm working so that is a positive regarding the diversity of of thought I I definitely understand what you mean and I I used to interact with people from different nationalities in the US here that is that is missing to some extent uh especially when let's say you have employees who are working with you you

cannot be yourself when you're discussing with them you can discuss about certain things but you cannot truly express your opinions because it's like finally your objective is to you know get get work done from from those people so that is something which which I feel is missing from Office life that largely it is not like a discussion Le environment but it's more like like a top down or a hierarchical environment sometimes not not always but yeah that is that is definitely something which which is maybe a negative of living here with respect to cleanliness we

have identified areas around our apartment and and co-working which are which are pretty clean and we avoid going to areas which are not very clean unless there is a business visit so uh that is something which can be optimized I think it takes some time but eventually you can find a niche area even in India where the cleanliness is kind of comparable to us not with respect to air quality index I think that will never be comparable even in the long term but with respect to in general hygiene of the place Etc and then facilities

can always find a niche yeah maybe Raj and Shri you want to yeah so diversity of thoughts I would say I had a better experience from the US people from different cultures and different countries uh who probably won't get offended on speaking your mind in a in a way which is not personal but more like you can speak different ideas and people still be willing to listen and debate with you that is maybe um first of all I haven't attempted those debates but uh I can see that many family members or close people who can

get emotionally agitated when you bring up certain topics for debate um so diversity of thoughts is in uh I would say when you are more in a population from like so we live in Pune so most of the people are either from Pune or uh people whom we know closely from uh similar places as us so the diversity of culture and thoughts are a bit less but I also understand that in India there are all types of cultures and all types of so if you travel a lot in India maybe you will get to experience

a lot more different cultures but if you are primarily staying in one place uh probably you don't get to you don't get to experience that that much as being in one place in the US where people come from all parts of the world if you are in a city um the thing that bothers me the most is uh cleanliness and lack of discipline in the traffic um people you can easily see that when there is a traffic jam people the the wiser thing to do is like just wait for the road ahead you to clear

a little bit leave some space And if every every one did that it would clear very fast but no one does that so traffic takes a lot of time sometimes to clear up so these kinds of things but it's also like the Nash equilibrium or something right in Game Theory like people uh I guess that's what it is right people take selfit selfish decisions and overall the outcome ends up being bad for everyone so probably there is no solution for that um I really like the I think if you can manage to get homade food

which are a bit organic and stuff like that Indian food is very balanced and I think it's very healthy uh not if you are eating from restaurants and not if you are ordering from SGI tomato but when I look at my grandmother she she has been eating the same kind of food has never had access to restaurant food or online ordered food home homecooked food probably not rich in protein mostly maybe carbohydrates but still has had a pretty she's still I think she's 84 or 85 or something like that uh very you know very good

health with respect to her age so and the kind of food that she eats I think is overall very good and I think if everyone in India could manage to eat like that home homemade food uh taste personally taste wise and healthwise I find it better than what is available in the US in in the US everything is Big portions are big calorie density is more everything is Big so maybe it's it's well suited for people who are from the us but as an Indian whose whose body is maybe 20% smaller maybe I don't need

that big portions I think my body is better suited for Indian kind of food so that part I don't regret uh but I don't know if that was one of the Five Points which you mentioned you mentioned Dei cleanliness air quality air quality yeah for sure uh in many parts of India I don't have air quality issue like Kerala I don't have much issue I I like the air quality I like the surroundings but in places where there is a lot of traffic there is a lot of dust Rising especially if you are walking along

the food path I I don't like it in Delhi gooda I'll probably won't visit those places or I'll try to stay away from uh highly air air polluted I also have breathing issues sometimes so I don't like to be near places where there is a air quality index problem um and yeah probably yeah the five things that you were saying but five things I said but three of those were what you discussed City of thought and cleanliness and uh traffic yeah one more thing I felt which could be improved in India is accountability of people

let's say somebody does a crime or someone involves in a um a road traffic accident or something like that there is very much much lack of accountability uh it's it's uh people people don't get punished by being held accountable for what they do maybe because the uh judicial system is slow or overburdened because there is a lot of population lot of issues to take care of uh I I'm I'm just wishfully thinking if that was better um but yeah I would I would agree with most of the issues which you raised as points uh to

my defense I would say still those are points which are not the make or break factor in my decision to come back it was purely based on I would say freedom like I don't want to work for someone and I don't want to play the game of H1B Visa or green card I don't want to stay at the edge of always on the edge thinking that if I lose the job in 60 days I have to find another job otherwise I'll be I'll have to leave I recently talked to one of my acquaintances who had

to leave after uh his Masters because he could not get hn B Visa I mean he yeah he could not find a job within certain number of days um I'm sure you also know some friends who probably got laid off and then had to come back by leaving everything behind so so I find that to be like um I find that to be equivalent of treatment like a second class citizen uh which I don't like that much um so although India has lot of issues I feel like it gives me a good footing where I

I won't get deported or I won't get sent away to some other place um if I don't have a job I can be here I can take my own time to build things and and it makes me feel like uh uh this this is my home and I can I can be here I can go to my parents house or someone else's house I can stay there uh I feel like number of options for me personally is higher here and but if I were an employee in a maybe um I would have thought us as

a better option because of higher pay and rest of the things that come with it come with it but from the point of view of doing what you want to do by running a startup to me India looks more um much better what about you Raj your thoughts oh yeah so uh yeah I agree that there are issues for sure but in my thinking it's like uh you have certain goals um and I a very goal oriented person and that goal for me is very clear that ultimately after 10 to 15 years uh we want

to create some sort of an AI Institute which would have five floors or 10 floors one floor would be data analysis one floor would be natural language processing one would be large language models one would be AGI maybe top floor is Agi so it's like that research lab in India which produces highest quality research um best quality courses and talent from all over the world similar to Labs like open AI um research coming out of meta research coming out of Nvidia my vision is that why can't India have such type of worldclass AI Labs which

produ consistently produced high quality AI research and now that this has come into Limelight a bit more after deep seek and the discussion has started very seriously like why can't India have their own foundational models but this is just the tip of the I I think if you look at the problem more closely it's like it's a systemic problem um Indian phds go to the US they work for us companies because of better opportunities so such type of Institutions are not there in India so to start something like this we need to contribute from the

roots from the school system from the college system to the university system you need to build courses you need to uh raise a culture of awareness with respect to research in students in college students that's exactly what we are doing I feel and the goal of reaching that that Vision that for me Shadows everything else so cleanliness issues yeah it's there but uh there are problems right but I want to reach my goal and I want to reach there in 5 years or 10 years time so all these issues are not even in my thought

honestly because being in India I can do everything which takes me to that goal I don't see a need to go to the US or Europe or anywhere else why would I be in the US if I want to make a foundational llm model based out of India or if I want to start an open AI in India why would I be in the US right so issues are there for sure like roads are not clean uh sometimes people are not disciplined they are not held accountable as you discussed but it's like the the the

fire for creating that vision is so high that everything is like like very small like I don't even see these problem so I think it's also about Vision right what you want and where you are right now and and also about priorities maybe I get it some people have priorities that they want to stay in a place which is clean have have a stable life um 9 to5 job but that's not my priority my thing is to get to that place after 10 years and okay to get there what's the best thing I could do

right now viu Labs is probably the best thing I could do right now we are doing it so there are issues but I don't think about them at all honestly in the last one year I would have spent maybe 0.1% thinking about whether I should be in the India or us I think people should just whereever they are they should just just attain their Vision just work hard get what you want yeah so that is about the first point second point is with respect to openness right uh um to that I have experienced actually because

if you look with respect to marriage right now uh in Indian culture you are expected to marry after at a certain age and I am also feeling that pressure at this moment honestly where the society just bends you into their will that okay if you don't marry you you're like an outcast and the openness to thought is not there you have to marry by 32 33 this would not be there if I were in the US for sure but it's not a break make break point um I can deal with my family who who is

putting this pressure and I can convince them I can be in the system and deal with these points but I also faced a similar situation in Boston when someone told me to go back to Egypt and that when I when I heard that that is something I cannot deal with it feels like you are not welcome in this country right whereas here people say things more out of a sense of care like you get married because it's a good thing for you but in the US they say it more out of a sense of like

okay you leave this country and I faced this one or two times not more um but even if you hear this once or twice you feel like what what am I doing here why don't I be with my own people right so openness is there in my lab also there are people from Morocco people from Europe India Korea China great conversations great perspectives but overall you feel like you're living in a country where you are not welcome and I know other other of my friends when they hear these things they just leave it and 99.5%

of their life is fine but that point. 5% I was not able to forget and that that I think it's like yeah so openness I feel what did you experience something like that in the US around that you were not welcome here or something like that yeah we have uh I mean us by default especially New England I would say are do have racist people in in certain uh parts of it like internal New England we have faced it Raj like in a restaurant and we were not given a seat once and you know they

gave it to somebody else and stuff um so I'm not denying that but like I don't experience it most of the time and then there's also another segment of certain blue States like Minnesota and and Massachusetts also blue and at least Boston area and I mean blue I mean like uh Democrats versus conservative Republicans so I have my current company where I have like really good support from people who want genuinely to get me a green card they willing to write letters even from really high level like Executive Vice Presidents and uh CTO and almost

like so I feel like they value the immigrants at least the intelligent educated uh folks working in Fortune 100 companies which then makes you feel welcome in that way uh but like shat said yes I do I think about the fact that you know I have an H1B Visa appointment coming in a month uh whether uh you know if it could go south when I may not be able to go back to the US I have my family there like right now my wife and my puppy and stuff uh does that cause stress yeah sure

it does uh but I'm pretty sure like the people who are watching this video 95% would probably be closer to me than to Raj in terms of having a vision or a focus that basically uh occludes all of these all of these things that you're noticing in front of you and just go towards your vision like for me personally I like my projects but I also think about all of these other things uh and the fact that this will enable me to have a good salary and a good savings 30 years from now so I'm

thinking all of those things I'm not like so Vision focused that I can ignore all of those things which is why on a day-to-day basis uh us still works for me because the pros outweigh the cons uh but for some people like Raj the cons outweigh the pros so I don't think there's like a correct solution to everything I'm pretty sure my wife is not exactly happy every day in the US one of the main reasons she says and which I can like maybe something we haven't spoken so far is um the Social Circle us

is obviously very well known that everybody Minds their own business so you don't know who's staying next to you or you don't know who's sitting next to you but like my closest friends are on this bench for example like we come on a trip every time we come here my wife misses her friends who are also from India so the lack of a Social Circle is sometimes One Singular Factor people just come back uh may not necessarily say family uh so for her that's a that's a real big con uh but data also shows that

I don't know if I'm supposed to say this but if I come back uh you know there also like especially with two states and everything there could be more societal and family issues if I come back to India data shows that as as well so the so I will pull her back because of that but uh that's something we haven't discussed and you guys can add in the Social Circle and uh racism components uh which you will not necessarily face in in India because most people are Indians uh but if you can ignore that 5%

as I do or not even 5% it's probably like let's say let's say I face five experiences in eight years so know you can compute the probability okay um I think we discussed about this one topic quite a bit um maybe we can talk a little bit about money um money and social status maybe because I know many people who go to the US because it it elevates their social status and uh personally me it does not bother me that much maybe money is what bothers me more said Social Circle but we can also discuss

social status yeah Circle as in like who you're surrounded with correct correct most of the time in us I'm alone for example with my family whereas here you are necessarily having a larger Social Circle and yeah that is true um in us also I found com Comfort by finding fellow Indian students and being around them so I think I completely understand if someone if someone does not get that Social Circle especially after they graduate and they they try to set up their own families and you're probably not surrounded by your community members and you find

it hard to make a group of people to hang out with um about the social status thing what I was trying to say was uh in many families that I closely know uh I know internally the the parents also if their kid is studying or went to the US they they don't want their kid to come back because apparently it reduces the social status of their parents and for kids also the the students also they probably don't want to come back because it kind of reduces their social status not in the US but within their

family or extended family in India uh okay personally for me this is not at all a concern I don't care what the social status is but maybe for me the concern would be the earning potential so if uh so right now I'm putting all my bet on whatever we are working on and I won't regret if things do not work out because I have tried even if let's say vua fails miserably after 10 years I won't regret because I have tried the best but if I was in a working in a company uh let's say

Google in India then every day I would have the thought I could have also worked in Google in in the US or Amazon Seattle and could have earned much much higher so uh right now I'm not thinking about it because I know that as an entrepreneur you are taking more risk but the reward could be higher in the long term so um although the the thought of um you know not being in the US or being in India that that thought does not come but I always when I see people for example let's say you

work in the US for five years you can easily afford a very very good car a very good house lot of things right so material possessions it's very easier to make just as an employee and you are not working probably Saturday Sunday you you you have very good work life balance you can buy a lot of things very easily so that so that game um in India it's very difficult as an employee as an entrepreneur you have much bigger hopes but you are playing a delayed gratification game probably so how much does it bother you

so to you uh I I'll ask it differently maybe I don't you can get back an answer to this question about uh uh in the US like after how many years will you feel like okay I have made decent enough money and I probably don't need more money but I need to find something meaningful to do for the rest of my life will that will that thought come to you at some point that is my question to you but before that Raj and um how much do you think about money and uh if you were

working in the US you could have made a lot lot of money working a lot lesser much faster not necessarily in the long term but in the short term so what do you think about money as a factor um being in India and being in the US yeah so uh I been thinking about money actually quite a lot in the last few months and uh the first thing which is also like uh about social status let's say a lot of people they value money because there is a kind of a show off that is a

associated with associated with it let's say you buy a very expensive car and then suddenly people in the society look at it and they treat you with more respect so uh these materialistic things don't matter to me at all actually because if you look at a car it's like a piece of aluminium which takes you from point A to point B and why are you working so hard like you're working so hard for getting money to buy that piece of aluminium it's like an extrinsic object but it is not it doesn't actually mean anything so

for me money is important not because of showing it off to society but because it will give me that Independence and and the freedom to live the life the way I want to live it uh I have gone through that soci that societal pressures initially even our family had imagined that okay we'll be settled in the us and our parents had imagined that life for us yes yes yeah but then when we came back that dream was shattered and uh it it took us quite some time to you know get them believe that we are

not just here to just sit and roam around but we are actually building something useful and then uh yeah so that was a journey from there to where we are right now uh yeah so uh with respect to money I think of it like I want to reach a stage where it gives me that Independence and the freedom and uh I also want to be at a stage where I have a lot of money like not just uh so so you can get independence even if you have let's say tens of millions of dollars right

but then there is one level which exists above that which is which is something which which I desire I still exactly don't know why I'm Desiring that because there are multiple brackets and even in those lower brackets you can get the independence and freedom that I want but I somehow desire to be in the topmost bracket and maybe I'll understand why I'm feeling this few months or years down the line but I definitely want to be up there and for me money is important it is something which is yeah which is which is Cru cral

but I'm still trying to understand why I want to be in that upper strata when it comes to money oh yeah Raj yes yes yeah I have a followup question RIT so um to reach the upper strata of money whatever you have in your mind do you think your decision of coming back to India was uh favorable towards it or do you think us would have been the better option if this was your goal uh yeah so I feel that if if you are creating something which is valuable to clients and which which is truly

helping someone people will be willing to pay you money for that service or product which is independent of the region where you are living in I feel that we are living in times where the country or the place that you're living in is completely irrelevant because if you have if you're building something which is truly valuable it will sell to people across the globe so uh eventually we are trying to build a business model which is also local and and Centric to uh people in India let's say reamping the school education system in terms of

AI that is going to take us to some stage because the clients will be only Indian clients but we also have other offerings in our business model which are more Global offerings which will cater to students institutes all over the world so uh the the the choice of country really does doesn't matter in reaching that upper strata of society because the ultimate goal is going to be to build something which is of tremendous value for our client so that is the focus which I have on a daily basis but yeah uh maybe Raj you can

answer this question we have also discussed it multiple times in our apartment but yeah yeah so for me money has two purposes mostly first is for my basic needs uh just food clothing shelter second uh main thing is for us to achieve the vision so there is this vision of the AI system ecosystem Creation in India if you want to buy land if you want to create a university if you want gpus if you want to create some sort of an organizational structure like this uh which changes the whole education system has a research center

equivalent to open AI uh has high quality research coming out every year students valuing research that that whole AI ecosystem in schools colleges and even after that and one University which is like MIT but specifically for AI now that is the vision for me what I realized is that even if there are 20 crores in my bank account I will not take that BMW I like a BMW i7 electric car but I I just like to look at it if I get that money in the bank account I will use it for this Vision so

for me the second purpose of money is as a means to fulfill this Vision so that I can buy land construct the UN City get gpus assign professors create the whole ecosystem so because my vision in life is to create value out of this ecosystem and then to capture value out of it and money serves as a medium to get there so for me also it's like okay what is the best place for me right now to for to deploy this money or to get this money right now it's India if later as he was

saying if we are expanding to other countries to get that money we can expand but the ultimate vision is the same so it's not for I know that doing this I will definitely attain status that that is a byproduct U and I don't want to get a car just to show someone because as you said car you can get temporary value from car but you cannot capture meaningful value but you can capture a meaningful value from student studying at your University that is what I want to deploy my money towards so that's why I think

about money every day but just the company should make money so that we can deploy it into this vision I myself will of course be well off if this vision is ATT end because needs are less I'm very happy just like the way it is I will I will never I'm not that kind of person who will drive a BMW to the office anyways even if you become rich so that I realized about myself so money plays a very crucial role I think about it every day how the company will make money so that we

have 100 crores in the bank account to reach this Vision status game and all others are playing that let them play but I'm not in that I want to do this because then ultimately I know I will rise above everyone else so I'm not even thinking about that status game and all that I just every day morning I'm thinking how to achieve this Vision yeah so to sh's question concisely I can uh maybe direct 95% of the people watching this video to probably do what I'm seeing I'm doing versus what Raj and rajit and you

didn't actually mention about the upper levels that you want to reach um is trying to do because uh statistically what I'm doing is more likely so even if the 100% of the people watching this video want to do what Raj and Reas are trying to do they're not going to get there statistically you're not going to get there so I am saying that I'm sa saving 5K I have uh whatever amount in my bank already by age of 30 and it's going to accumulate it's going to compound it's going to get between 5 and 10

investing in okay stocks this is what is statistically a successful life when you are not aiming for uh extremely successful things that you want to do now Jensen for example Jensen hang has said that startup makers are naive they have to be naive because if you play by stats no one will ever have take a startup because 99% of startups fail so completely understand your vision and you guys should go for it but uh the likelihood of success at this point when I define success my way is higher for me that's the stats now the

second question is this naturally affords me like other things I want like a semi- hybrid car driving around us not because I'm like looking for status or anything I just like driving cars and I just want to drive a car really couldn't care less what other people are thinking that I'm affording a car just because I like it so whatever I want and what my wife wants and what my puppy wants I'm able to afford uh very easily and still like have enough amount of savings in the bank like I test my like my puppy

goes to the vet almost every other week and uh my wife does like we do trips to South America um every few months um and then still we save whatever decent amount of money and still we are on track to like save quite a bit we will get a house soon enough we'll get a we already have a car so I'm just saying that it looks like if I'm not having that extreme Vision to achieve extreme success but I'm still like reasonably uh ambitious to attain like decent amounts of things like if I'm working at

3M for the next 20 years I do want to reach a highest level that 3M efforts for their research employees which is like t7 which is you know very very less likely for people it's like 5% I do want to get there but that's still statistically 5% is much higher than 0.1% or whatever that startups will have it's not like to deter anybody I'm just seeing numbers here for the purpose of that so in that way I feel like comfortable with what I have right now but if I'm having a startup I will have a

I have a different vision from Raj right I want to start up in the mental health space and I will not come to a country where mental health is to a large extent still taboo still better than 10 years L before but I know companies which are doing it like I won't mention the companies but I know how they startup Founders have written that they went to companies and the people were like refusing to use their service because using their service meant that they had to like uh agree that something was wrong in first in

the in terms of mental health which they didn't want to do that is such an outdated Outlook that like I wouldn't even entertain those kind of interactions uh when I care so much about mental health so that like kind of moves India away from the benchmarks of things that I would aim for that so anyways the mental startup so let's say uh I agree that in India the awareness with respect to mental health is not that high but what if uh you are the person who creates that awareness through your company in India there are

two options right you can start where it's better and proliferate quickly there in India it's not good I agree but it's better than our parents for sure people are talking about it uh almost in our circles at least almost everyone talks about it so it's better 15 years back and it's going to maybe get better 30 years later and people like you might play that transformation role I think there is a scope for one major mental health startup in India which will reform things do things so let's say uh what if between these two options

how do you choose where you want to direct the efforts into because this is also quite impactful right you will get to be at the Forefront of the awareness revolution in India so it's like shat said earlier so we are we are speaking here about number then if if it's like I'm starting a startup in two and two years from now I have let's say uh uh I'm not going to say exact numbers but I have uh 1 million in my bank account right now I'm basically making a bet something similar to you guys like

my wife likes India already the AI agents is a very very good game to play for the mental health startup space there's lots that you could do with even like very few employees right now uh and we have certain visions of getting a network in in the US and coming to India to make it work but you're playing a game where you have 1 million in your account you're going to use some of it and there is a 1% chance that you will succeed making a away with the other game which is like stay continue

to stay in the US for another 20 years and like 100% chance that you will make it into 10 to 20 million combined with my wife so that's a very risky game that that you need to actually try to like write out now Raj said you have vision and stuff and yeah obviously if you can like somehow feel that urge you that this is what your life stands for go for it money is like secondary it doesn't really matter but if you're not able to do that then you have to do like datab based decision

instead of opinion based decision and then it becomes really hard to justify coming back and doing this in India versus continuing to play the safe game in the US that's like my thought so if you're already able to afford many things that you would like to afford and you have a very good likelihood of you know affording a few things because you have a very predictable trajectory M um do you think you will get bored after 3 four years um because you know what to expect do you feel like you are in an autopilot mode

and and do you think you want to take control of um I guess more than control so during my PhD at some point I felt like I'm in an autopilot mode and I wanted to get out of it so what I mean by that is uh by third year I felt like okay I'll finish my PhD I'll I'll apply for a job H1B Visa Green Card citizenship so that is what I mean by autopilot like every step is kind of predefined and you know exactly what to do it's just about figuring out how to do

it uh so you talk to seniors or whoever who have done it and then you just play the game it's like it's like a predefined game and you are you just need to go from A to B to C and Ascend the levels so do you think the current game that we are playing is maybe it is a game for people who have done it but at least for me since I don't have the experience and I haven't seen many people do it to me it's still like an uncertain thing uh it's not like a

predefined game where I know where I'm going next I just need to figure out how to do it it's not exactly like that but in your case do you feel do you think you will get bored uh I would I would think I sometimes feel bored at work currently as well but it's like always going to change right dynamic dynamic nature of your work is obviously much more than mine but so couple of years later kids kids will come into the picture that's one dynamicity then you will change your job into like from technical individual

contributor to managing a group of people then managing a bigger group of people and then they still individually contributing so those Dynamic stuff uh will come and I think that will keep you engaged uh to some extent and that's what I'm counting on like uh if I'm doing this but I also genuinely want to do something for the mental health because I've struggled a lot with it and I feel like that's one purpose that I need to fulfill uh but then it's not like I said a simple simple thing that you could take very quickly

at least for me uh but to directly answer your question it's less Dynamic than you guys but there's still a lot of uncertainities I feel that will come along the way as I keep going from a T3 to T4 to whatever if I continue at 3m. for example and that will I hope be sufficient to keep me uh on my foot every day to continue to like be interested in my work um yeah just just something unrelated but uh uh there is just one uh one discussion I had with someone uh around like two years

back when I came back to India uh so this lady was a mother of two and she also had had come back to India around 5 years back and I was asking her how has your experience been Etc and then she had this interesting line where she said that uh she wants to raise her kids in India because in India you get to learn how to navigate yourself in chaos so so if you look at in every single way like every hurdle we have faced in life there has always been a lot of a lot

of competition and and the system inherently has a lot of chaos and uncertainty and if you want to get something you need to pass a lot of people and pass a lot of hurdles to get that so just a simple example let's say there is we visited this uh this monument called ashadam right in yeah in in Delhi akaram and was a beautiful monument and we were so excited to see it but there was such a big queue that it took us three hours to get inside and then after that we had a good time

but then just the barrier that you have to cross to get to that stage was huge and that barrier is seen not just in seeing monuments but also in other places where you have to pass competitive exams or even get anything which is of value and then she was of the opinion that she wants to raise her kids in this chaos because those learnings they can utilize later in life even if they go abroad that they have learned to handle the most complex chaotic system and then all other systems that they are going to see

are going to be simpler than that so that that was something interesting and U I'm I'm also think like I understand the chaos which which she said but I'm interested to know your opinion also about raising kids since you mentioned about kids as a certainty in a few years what are your opinions about raising kids in like different countries so I had a like yeah we'll we'll wrap it up so there's no there's like one thing to follow up on this so competition you mentioned competition is it a pro or a con according to what

you guys think because to me competition is a con because it kills the value of the actual learning at least that's how I view it that's but at the same time India has a lot of Pros for the way people are raised uh like how you are taught to respect elders and how you taught to behave and stuff which is different in the US but at the same time us your kid can actually uh your your boy kid can actually bring a boy and you will accept it like lgbtq for example I don't believe this

happens in India now that's a different so it's very hard to say like what is the right way to bring up a kid or what you want for your next Generation uh so to like honestly I don't know the answer to this because everyone will have their own but yeah that's whatever you guys what is like the one thing you feel is most important for your next generation and does that exist in the US or in India uh one thing that is important for everyone is feeling respected maybe and I think uh maybe it exists

better in the US people people generally show you a respect at least uh in their gestures I don't know how they do it whether they respect internally or not and that that is important like small small gestures where you respect the existence of the other person perspective of their whatever their personal preferences are so from that point of view I think and I also think it is very high like highly likely that uh let's say if we have kids they might go go to other countries it's it's very likely and probably we can do nothing

to prevent it uh or nor nor do nor do I wish to prevent it whatever they want to do but it's very likely that that that might happen so uh even if I wanted to raise a child I can only probably do it till they are 18 or something till they are studying in undergrad and maybe they can go to wherever they want to if they want to study undergrad in the US or somewhere else um but many people make this statement about they are long on India like they they have a very high hope

about India in the long term so that statement I agree with a lot I think India might grow a lot in the next 30 Years and I really want to be at the Forefront of that growth and I want to contribute to it not out of patriotism or anything but out of selfish desire to add value to a place something like that so I really I really think a lot of people are now building things in India contributing to his growth and I also want to be part of that story and when I look back

when I'm 60 or something creating maybe 20,000 jobs 50,000 jobs something like that and having created a organization that delivers a lot of value that runs itself which lives two generations even after I am gone if I can do something like that I would prefer it to be done in India than anywhere else so I would say that is keeping me very optimistic about India irrespective of all the issues that I may have been facing here so so that's my last last two cents yeah I think I think we can yeah can I wrap it

up guys yes thank you so much thank you so much everyone yes bye very long