Is IIT actually worth it? Startup founder says biggest return is not the degree, but something that can't be replaced by any AI or algo

An IIT Bombay graduate has stirred up a fresh online debate over whether an engineering degree from India's premier institutes still holds value in an age where artificial intelligence can answer almost any question in seconds. Shikhar Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of the startup Anahad, tackled the question in a LinkedIn post, arguing that the real payoff of his IIT years had little to do with textbooks or the institute's famous name tag.

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The question everyone keeps asking him

Five years out of college and running his own company, Agrawal says one query refuses to go away. "It's been 5 years now since I left IIT Bombay, built Anahad but people still ask me, 'IIT actually worth it tha? Or just hype?'" he wrote. He added that the doubts have only grown louder as AI tools make knowledge easier to access than ever. "Especially now, when AI can explain almost anything, information is free & a degree doesn't carry the same weight it once did," he wrote. Agrawal completed his BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2021.

A fish tank explains it all

To make his case, Agrawal reached for an analogy that had nothing to do with classrooms. He compared personal growth to a goldfish's size, which changes depending on the space it lives in. "If you put them in a small bowl, it grows 2-3 inches. Put it in a larger aquarium & it grows 3-4 inches. But when you put it in a pond, it grows 5-6 inches," he wrote. "IIT was my POND," he added.

The point, he clarified, was never about the campus buildings or lab equipment. It was about the people who filled that pond alongside him.

What he says actually paid off

Agrawal credits his time at the institute not to the degree certificate but to the company he kept for four years. "The biggest return IIT Bombay gave me wasn't the degree hanging on my wall or the tag on my LinkedIn profile. It was spending 4 years surrounded by some of the most ambitious, curious & capable people I'd ever met," he said.

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Being around classmates who were constantly building, questioning and competing, he explained, quietly reset his own bar for ambition. "When everyone around you is building something, questioning assumptions, solving difficult problems, competing at a high level, and thinking bigger than you do, your own standards start changing," he wrote.

Why AI made him value it more, not less

Rather than diminishing his college years, the AI boom has made Agrawal appreciate them further, he says. "Ironically, AI has made me appreciate that experience even more," he wrote.

He believes tools like AI have flattened access to information for everyone. "We now live in a world of abundant information. Intelligence is accessible to everyone & AI can answer almost anything you ask it," he wrote. But he insists this abundance hasn't touched the one thing he considers truly rare: a room full of people who push each other forward.

"But a great learning environment, one that challenges you, inspires you & stretches you through extraordinary peers, that is becoming rare. That's what IIT gave me. And no algorithm is going to replicate that anytime soon," he concluded.