Three days after her pointed question to Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath went viral, Columbia student Anaheez Patel has addressed the moment in a LinkedIn post.
At the India Business Conference, Patel directly referenced Kamath’s earlier remark questioning the value of MBAs. “A few months ago, you said if you are 25 and getting your MBA, you must be some kind of idiot,” she said, calling out the contradiction of such a view being expressed at a business school event. The exchange went viral across India on the relevance of formal education versus hands-on experience.
“72 hours of breaking the internet”
In her LinkedIn post, Patel stated that the scale of attention the moment received. “72 hours of breaking the internet in India,” she wrote, stating that this exchange has become one of the most talked-about business education debates of 2026 according to Indian media. She noted that much had been “said, assumed and inferred” about her, adding that “97% of it was positive.”
Her childhood
Patel also explained her upbringing, describing a household where education was “non-negotiable.” With a marine engineer father, a teacher mother and a paediatric surgeon sister, academics and learning were central to daily life.
She recalled a childhood filled with extracurriculars including debate, music, theatre and academic competitions alongside a deep emphasis on intellectual curiosity. “Books were never questioned,” she wrote, adding that even family trips were centred around “learning and substance.”
Privilege, but not the obvious kind
Addressing assumptions about her background, Patel said she did grow up with privilege, but not in the way people often imagine.
“I grew up with a degree of privilege, nothing excessive,” she wrote, emphasising that access to knowledge was the most valuable part of her upbringing. She described herself as being “VERY RICH, in that sense of the term.”
She also shared a personal example that her family’s domestic help, whose daughters were supported through education. Today, one of them holds an MBA and has achieved upward mobility. “So when I speak about education, it’s not abstract. I’ve seen firsthand what it can do,” she wrote.
Speaking up and standing firm
Patel framed her question as part of a larger belief in open dialogue. “I have a spine, and I believe in using it,” she wrote. She argued against what she called “intellectual politeness,” where people avoid disagreement for the sake of comfort, stressing instead the importance of respectful, logic-driven debate.