For years, IIT has held the status of being the top institution in the country, from the brightest minds in science to scholars, IIT has been home to students from every nook and corner of India. From about 20-25 thousand applicants only 10,000 make it to the IITs every year. And few of them have gone on to become billionaires and excelled in their fields.
Here’s a list of billionaires who proudly call themselves IIT alumni:
Sundar Pichai, Chairman and CEO of Alphabet Inc.
Sundar Pichai, born Pichai Sundararajan in Tamil Nadu, is an Indian-American chairman and CEO of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google. After completing his schooling at Jawahar Vidyalaya Senior Secondary School and Vana Vani School at IIT Madras in Class XII, he studied metallurgical engineering at IIT Kharagpur. Pichai then pursue M.S. in materials science and engineering from Stanford University and received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where he was recognised as a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, respectively making him one of the brightest minds in the country and abroad.
Pichai started his career as an engineer and product manager at McKinsey & Company and joined Google in 2004. And in 2019 he became the CEO of Alphabet Inc. Pichai now has a net worth of $1.31 billion according to The Times Of India report. According to Bloomberg, his pay package touched $226 million in 2022 with a base salary of $2 million.
N.R. Narayana Murthy, Co-founder of Infosys
Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, is a business magnate. He is one of Infosys’s seven co-founders and previously served as the company’s chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief mentor before resigning and accepting the title of chairman emeritus. After finishing high school, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1967 from NIT and a Master’s degree from IIT, Kanpur in 1969.
He embarked on his professional journey as a researcher at IIM Ahmedabad and later he created along with six software professionals in 1981 created Infosys with an initial capital investment of Rs 10,000 donated by his wife Sudha Murty. As per the Forbes report, he has a net worth of $4.3 billion.
Jay Chaudhury, CEO of Zscaler
Jay Chaudhry attended IIT Varanasi. He is the CEO and creator of cloud security business Zscaler who holds a Bachelor’s degree from IT-BHU, as well as Master’s degrees in computer engineering, industrial engineering, and business administration from the University of Cincinnati.
SecureIT, CipherTrust, AirDefense, and CoreHarbor were all founded by Chaudhry. He is widely regarded as one of India’s wealthiest IITians of all time. Jay Choudhary made the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America for the 45th time in 2021, with a net worth of US$16.3 billion (as of October 2021). In 2023, he has a net worth of $7.9 billion according to Forbes.
Bharat Desai, Co-Founder and Chairman of Syntel
Bharat Desai is a millionaire businessman from the United States and the co-founder and chairman of Syntel. He graduated from IIT, Bombay with a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business with an MBA in finance. He is one of India’s wealthiest IITians.
Desai, who was Syntel’s chairman, was born in Kenya, raised in India and came moved to America in 1976 when he joined Tata group as a programmer. At present he has a net worth of $1.5 billion.
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Founders of Flipkart
Sachin and Binny Bansal are IITian billionaires in the technology sector who founded Flipkart. Both, Sachin and Binny studied computer engineering at IIT Delhi.
The online e-commerce startup is now one the biggest online shopping destination for millions. Flipkart started as an online bookstore and eventually evolved into an e-commerce platform. According to Forbes, Sachin has a net worth of $1.3 billion as of 2023. In 2018, Wal-Mart paid $16 billion for a 77% share in Flipkart, the world’s largest purchase for an internet company. Bansal cashed out, selling a minority stake in the company for $1 billion. Binny has a net worth of $1.4 billion, Forbes report.
Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and founder, Khosla Ventures
Vinod Khosla born in 1955 is a venture investor and Indian-American businessman. He is a Sun Microsystems co-founder and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla amassed his fortune through early venture capital investments in networking, software, and alternative energy technology. He attended IIT Delhi from 1971 to 1976, where he got a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.
Khosla produced a business proposal for an electronic design automation company for electrical engineers after obtaining his MBA at Stanford in 1980. He was introduced to Intel personnel and became Daisy Systems’ first full-time founder and Chief Financial Officer. In 2004, he found Khosla Ventures based in California. At present, as per Forbes report he has a net worth of $6 billion.
