Aravind Srinivas, the Indian-origin CEO of Perplexity AI (an artificial intelligence-powered search startup), believes in following his heart when it comes to career decisions. In fact, while he was studying electrical engineering in IIT Madras in 2014, he sought out a professor who could help him research on AI because he was passionate about it.
It's the same advice he had for freshers who want to start up in AI.
"Follow your heart," Srinivas told Moneycontrol when asked what tip would he give to an 18-year-old in India or a 21-year-old who's just graduated who wants to start up in AI.
"Don't look at markets and decide, you know, don't see, oh, the market wants a sales analyst product. I'm going to build it. If you don't even care about sales, like why do you build an AI for sales? Build what you care about and what you would use because the first user of your product has to be yourself."
He further recommended against choosing a career depending upon market demand.
Read: Google created a terrible internet; we can create a win-win solution, says Aravind Srinivas
"Nobody cares about your product that you're building in the beginning other than you and your co-founders. And it's hard to care about something if you don't actually like it. So follow your heart and get some users, and then the market will automatically guide you to building something that has some commercial value," Srinivas said. "So, that's the right order rather than following the market and then trying to like it."
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