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The Secret to Building a Successful AI Startup in India Might Be a PhD
- Yann LeCun, chief of Meta AI, advised AI entrepreneurs in India to pursue a PhD degree in fields like artificial intelligence before starting their own startup. Although a PhD is not mandatory, it offers an advantage for building AI startups. Startups with at least one PhD founder are more likely to succeed and have higher valuations at IPO than those without. Research in India shows only 8% of newly launched AI startups have PhD founders.
- Investors in Indian startups prioritize quick returns over long-term investments, with Indian startups often focusing on business applications rather than foundational innovation. Some VCs claim to be deep tech investors, but don't understand the scale of investment required for true deep tech.
- Manish Shrivastava, chief scientist at Subtl.ai, has a PhD in computer science from IIT Bombay. Similarly, Sarvam AI, one of the most popular AI startups in India, was founded by Vivek Raghavan, who has a PhD from Carnegie Mellon.
- Startups founded by Yann LeCun’s students include AppZen, thunk.ai, Objective, Inc., and Clinical AI Assistance. Research shows that startups with at least one PhD founder are more likely to succeed and have higher valuations at IPO.
- Amit Sheth, founding director of the Artificial Intelligence Institute at the University of South Carolina, said several PhDs have started successful startups. Although there are cases of founders succeeding without advanced degrees, in general, those with deeper experience in technical innovation have an edge.
- The vast majority of researchers who co-authored Google’s paper ‘Attention Is All You Need’, which shaped the foundation of modern AI, later left the organization to start their own specialized niche within AI.
- Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, did not pursue a PhD but successfully built and led innovative companies in the world.
- In a complex, deeply technical area like AI, it is useful to learn about what exists out there, what’s possible, and what’s not. Pursuing a PhD or graduate studies trains people to invent new things and prevents them from fooling themselves into thinking they’re being innovators when they’re not.
- Rising AI startup founders with PhDs include Vishnu Ramesh, founder of Subl.ai, and Pranav Mistry, founder of TWO AI.
- Francois Chollet, creator of Keras, left Google recently. Toby Shevlane, a scientist at Google DeepMind, left to pursue his own venture.
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