I graduated from IIM A recently. I was one of the few students on campus to have withdrawn from campus placements. Now I have founded my own company (gradCapital) with a group of friends, and here's where I'll be working for the next couple of years.

gradCaptial wasn’t a one-night ideation venture. I began with small part-time experiments. I first tried starting a VC Club at IIM-A, which didn't work out. At the end of my MBA internship, I did some more experiments with my team. The success of these experiments gave us the feeling that this would work. And to give you more perspective on the idea: at gradCapital, we are betting that students can build great companies. And historically that has been the case. Major companies end up coming from college projects. We feel students are more suited to build radical companies than veterans - radical in tech, structure, culture, ideas etc.. Students have a fresher approach and are free from biases. But unfortunately, institutions have been designed in such a manner that you are discouraged to begin your own startup as you have a strict timeline, for example you cannot defer placements, etc. Students become entrepreneurs despite college, not because of college. At gradCapital, we want to change this despite into because.

I still love science. It has an element of creativity. You start appreciating things more, like nature is organised in such a way and governed by underlying elegant mathematics. With limited data, you have to make sense of how things work. Even though I liked science, I didn't fit in the academic environment. The process felt too rigid with an extra focus on publication parameters to get ahead. That time I decided to take a break from physics. I felt that if need be, I can still return to physics. I happened to appear for CAT at that time, and I got IIMA, so I decided to go for it.

Okay, let’s go way back in time. When I was in 10th standard, my teacher told me you can't do science, do commerce. My dad wanted me to become a CA. I took commerce on the 11th, and did it for a month. Got tired of accounting.. So I dropped commerce and went for science. My friends used to go to VMC, Aakash, and all these cool coaching centres, while I didn’t. At the end of 12th standard, I signed up for the test series of VMC and I started scoring well. I realized that the kids going to VMC and kids doing NCERT were studying the same thing only, F = ma everywhere. Koi alag gyan nahi de rhe. My physics interest stemmed from there. It was easy to convince my parents to go to BITS Physics because of the dual degree enggineering option. They thought I’ll take it - but Iended up betraying them :P

I really wanted to explore Physics. I never had a knack for engineering. I didn't like building or optimizing things. I liked discovering. I felt that if I continued with the BE degree, my engagement with physics might suffer. I was 100% sure that I didn't want to do Mechanical. I realised I was simply doing it for psychological safety, and there is little real utility to it.

I really like physics, like how you can represent things in a simplistic manner. F=ma can explain so much, from complex orbits to tides. It so happened that I read someone's paper from Yale wherein he derived the equation of the movement of insects in a simplistic manner. The paper’s result was that what insects are trying to do when they're moving is that they are maximising their entropy to maximise their life chances. The idea of representing so much about insects in simplistic mathematical equations piqued my interest in biology, and particularly insects. Lots of research in biology is driven by physics. In fact, I felt biology is closer to nature, so I conducted subsequent research on that.

Meko yeh backup vaala bahut weird lagta hai. For every decision, there are upsides and potential downsides. My framework of decision making is simple: If I don’t do this, would I be questioning myself in the future “what if I had taken that decision”. If the answer is yes, I go ahead and do it. And actually, downsides itne hai nahi. Peer pressure and family pressure are secondary things that increase your base level, ki minimum yeh toh chahiye. For example ki 12 lakh ki naukri chahiye, usse Kam mein Kaam nahi chalega. But that’s never the reality. And to be honest, one of the beauties of Pilani campus is that tum gareebon ki tarah rehna seekh lete ho. Matlab you can take that risk, humein fancy lifestyle nahi chahiye.

What is the worst that can happen? I'll be alive, right? I’ll get my daily bread, right? What will be the upside? I end up loving XYZ and end up making my life out of it. And this upside is something I want to strive for.

Physics. No doubt. Building marvelous theories based on very limited data. Requires genius.

I feel more attached to BITS. When someone says college, BITS comes to my mind, not IIM A. IIM A seemed like a more professional environment. But yes, the experience at IIM A was enriching as well. You get to meet a lot of people. You have case-based classes, learning is a basis for student discussions.

Dost banao, chill karo, sunshine jaao! Don’t change yourself because of others - generic advice but somehow carries some truth.