From 'lower middle class' Tamil family, he missed IIT Madras CSE by 0.01, was rejected by MIT. Today, he is the CEO of $20 billion AI startup

Nobody becomes a founder or CEO overnight, especially with networth in billions. The success is not straightforward. It is a path filled with challenges, setbacks, and rejections. Aravind Srinivas, the Chennai-based cofounder and CEO of AI search startup, Perplexity, knows that journey quite well. From missing out Computer Science degree at IIT Madras by just 0.01 GPA to facing an MIT rejection, Srinivas has spoken about his setbacks that once left him questioning himself.

The IIT Madras setback that left him ‘depressed’

Srinivas secured admission to IIT Madras, where he eventually earned B.Tech and M.Tech degrees in Electrical Engineering. However, he wanted to pursue Computer Science. Speaking on the Aarthi and Sriram podcast hosted by venture capitalists Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan, Srinivas recalled how difficult it was to watch friends who had prepared for the JEE with him enter Computer Science. He recalled being "disappointed" and for a year, he was "just depressed". He even tried to change his branch after the first semester, but missed the required CGPA by just 0.01, which to him was "the end of the world."

‘Let me prove the world wrong’

But the disappointment became his success story. It eventually pushed Srinivas deeper into learning. He said he “went into a whole shell” and began spending his time exploring online lectures, competitive programming websites and coding problems. Rather than giving up on Computer Science, he began teaching himself many of the skills associated with the field.


He started coding, a motivation that was partly driven by "vengeance" and the desire to "prove the world wrong." This became a crucial point in his learning. As he developed interest in machine learning he also enrolled in machine learning class in his third year. The course was run by the Computer Science department, despite him being an Electrical Engineering student.

His professor initially warned him that electrical engineering students might struggle with the class, telling him, “Maybe you can prove me wrong.” Srinivas did exactly that. “I ended up topping the class,” he said.

MIT rejected him after a Turing Award winner’s recommendation

His growing interest in machine learning eventually led to an internship with Canadian computer scientist and Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio. Bengio later recommended Srinivas for PhD admissions and wrote a letter on his behalf. Srinivas applied to only two universities, MIT and UC Berkeley. He shared, “MIT rejected me, Berkeley admitted me.” He went on to earn his doctorate in Computer Science from UC Berkeley.

From OpenAI and Google DeepMind to Perplexity

Srinivas subsequently built experience at some of the biggest names in artificial intelligence. He worked as a researcher at OpenAI and Google DeepMind before cofounding Perplexity. He also interned with OpenAI. In August 2022, Srinivas cofounded Perplexity with Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats and Johnny Ho. The AI search startup has since grown rapidly and reached a $20 billion valuation in 2025.

As reported by Forbes, Perplexity is backed by prominent investors including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, AI pioneer Yann LeCun and Google’s chief scientist Jeff Dean.

His family was not from an engineering background

Srinivas has also spoken about the family circumstances he came from. During a conversation with Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath, he revealed that his mother was in the central government and his father was a financial accountant, which made him the first engineer in the extended family. When Kamath asked whether he was Tamilian, Srinivas confirmed that he was, adding that his family had traditionally been associated with accounting. “Engineering was still a new thing at the time for us,” he said.

In another interview with Harry Stebbings on The 20 VC podcast, Srinivas reflected on how far his life had moved from his beginnings. “I have nothing to lose. I came from nothing,” he said, adding that he had never imagined himself doing what he does today. Srinivas recalled being in India during his undergraduate years, experimenting with computing resources and learning wherever he could. For his mother, he said, simply getting a job was considered success because the family was “financially lower middle class in India”.

Today, Srinivas leads Perplexity, whose valuation reached $20 billion in 2025. Forbes puts his net worth at $2.1 billion.