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Aman Goel said the internship introduced him to a strong engineering culture and taught him a great deal about building products.
IIT Bombay alumnus who earned ₹6.9 lakh a month in US chose startup life in India.An Indian startup cofounder’s post about leaving behind a high-paying internship in the United States to build companies in India has gained attention online. Aman Goel, cofounder of GreyLabs AI, shared on X how a summer internship in Silicon Valley helped him realise what he truly wanted to do in life.
In his post, Goel wrote, “Ten years ago, I landed in San Francisco as a 20-year-old kid from IIT Bombay, headed to Palo Alto to intern at Rubrik's Software Engineering Team. I was earning $8,000 a month, approximately ₹6.9 lakh. It felt like a dream.”
‘I wanted to go back to India’
Goel said the internship introduced him to a strong engineering culture and taught him a great deal about building products. “My mentor was an @CSE_IITBombay senior, who made me fall in love with databases and scalable backend systems. The work was exciting. The culture was electric. Rubrik went on to go public. I was one of the early interns, in 2016, before any of that happened,” he shared.
However, he explained that the experience gave him more than financial success. “But here is what that internship really gave me: Clarity. I realised I did not want to build my life in the Bay Area. I wanted to go back to India and build something of my own,” he wrote.
After returning to India in July 2016, Goel said he spent the final year of college learning about entrepreneurship, product strategy, sales and marketing. “Engineering was never my constraint. Business building became my obsession,” he added.
‘The quote hits differently when you live it’
Quoting Bill Gates, Goel wrote, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” He added that the quote “hits differently when you actually live it.”
Goel concluded by saying that his journey from being a Rubrik intern to cofounding Cogno AI, seeing it acquired, and later building GreyLabs AI began with “a summer in Palo Alto, a great mentor, and the courage to come back home and bet on myself.”
Social media users praise his decision
The post has received more than 112,000 views and sparked several reactions online. One user wrote, “$8000 a month in 2017 is crazy.” Another commented, “Remember reading your quora articles during high school years and they helped a lot!”
A third user praised his decision, saying, “You have made a quiet but consequential bet.” The person added that entrepreneurs like him were proving that “building in India is not a fallback, it’s the frontier.”
Another user wrote, “10 years and Aman is still showing up somehow in my feed. From Quora to Twitter. Anyways, congrats.”
One person commented, “Courage is what it takes to leave comfort behind and become an entrepreneur.” Another added, “Well done and many congratulations.”
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. LiveMint has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
About the Author
Kanishka Singharia
Kanishka Singharia is a Senior Content Producer at Mint with a passion for news, trends, and the stories shaping the digital world. She specialises in spotting viral narratives by constantly tracking social media platforms and turning them into engaging, reader-friendly stories. Her work ranges from fast-paced breaking updates to sensitive human-interest features, blending speed with clarity. <br><br> With over four years of experience in news and trend reporting, Kanishka has worked with leading organisations such as Hindustan Times and Times Now. She moves seamlessly between profiling business leaders and telling the stories of everyday people, covering national developments just as effortlessly as the memes and conversations that dominate online culture. <br><br> She also reports on real estate developments and civic challenges in major urban hubs like Bengaluru, Delhi, and Gurugram. Her coverage frequently explores the struggles of startup founders, inspiring journeys of CEOs, and the experiences of candidates dealing with the complexities of visa processes. <br><br> Kanishka holds an undergraduate degree in Journalism from Delhi University and a diploma from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. Rarely offline, she spends much of her time scrolling through X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook in search of the next big story. When she finally logs off, she enjoys binge-watching shows and exploring cafes in pursuit of good food and better conversations.
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