'Courage to come back home': Indian founder reveals how he left Rubrik.Inc's internship to create Rs100 crore startup in India

For some the thrill to fulfil their dreams is regardless of how hard they have to work and how long it will take. It's more about being able to look back one day and feeling satisfied that they did everything they ever dreamt of, with some failures and some successes. Recently, one such story has gripped the internet's hearts.

Aman Goel, co-founder and CEO of GreyLabsAI took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his journey from being an intern at Palo Alto and creating a successful Rs100 crore startup in India.

Goel shared that ten years ago, at the age of 20, he moved from IIT Bombay to San Francisco to intern at Rubrik Inc.'s software engineering team. "I was earning $8,000 a month. It felt like a dream," he wrote.

His mentor, an IIT Bombay senior had made him "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 added.

However, more than the work experience Goel said he received clarity from the internship, that he did not want to build a life there and rather wanted to go back to India and build something of his own. Thus, in July 2016, he returned and decided that during his fourth year of college, he would learn about how to build a company. “Entrepreneurship courses, product thinking, sales, marketing. Engineering was never my constraint. Business-building became my obsession,” he shared.

“"Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years." - Bill Gates That quote hits differently when you actually live it,” he added.

Goel wrote that in the past ten years, he went from being an intern at Rubrik to co-founding Cogno AI, bootstrapping it past $1 million in revenue, getting it successfully required and starting again from scratch.

"Today, at @GreyLabsAI, we have raised close to Rs. 100 crores from @z47_vc and @ElevCap. We are a team of 85+. We work with more than 75 large BFSI accounts across India. We have grown more than 3x year on year," he wrote.

As per Goel, it all started with a summer in Palo Alto with a great mentor, the courage to come back home and "bet on myself." "If you are an intern somewhere right now, pay attention to what excites you and what does not. That signal is worth more than the stipend. The next ten years are waiting," he suggested.


Netizens were moved by Goel's inspiring journey. "From reading your blogs on blogspot to reading your answers on quora to following you on X & LinkedIn. Been working in corporate world for over a year, now I'm also looking to start something of my own. Let's see how things pans out," shared one user.

"Feeling proud for you brother ...You chose to come back to your mothers who both need you ...more than that countless bright young minds who can't afford to go abroad to get the exposure you had.I hope and pray we don't disappoint you as Indians," added another.

"Great mentors during the professional journey are priceless. This resonates a lot" one wrote.