Tech Trums

IITian becomes CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Another one joins Meta with a $100 million signing bonus. These are no longer news; they’re calendar events. Like Diwali or GST filing. But what no one talks about is the unfortunate majority — the thousands of IITians who graduate every year and, tragically, do not make it to the Forbes billionaire list. Society may call them “normal,” but alumni WhatsApp groups know better: they’re cautionary tales. “I just scroll past such headlines. Pretend they don’t exist,” says Vikas Bhatnagar (name changed), an IIT alumnus working as a project manager in an IT services company. He drives a Hyundai Creta. The kind with manual transmission. During IIT alumni reunions — especially after the third whiskey — the truth leaks out like a memory dump. “Bloody Sundar Pichais and Bansals have ruined my life,” says Amit Sharma (name changed), while angrily smashing his glass on the table. “Every time an IITian makes it big, someone drops the link in ou...

  Arkansas, USA – Mani Goni had it all: a six-figure job at a tech company, a charming wife who packed quinoa lunches, two academically overachieving kids, a sleek Tesla parked outside his suburban home, and weekend Costco runs. Yet something felt... off. “Every Friday, my American coworkers would say things like, ‘I’m driving three hours to see my kids from my first marriage,’ or, ‘My step-daughter is bringing her step-dog over,’” Mani recalled during a Zoom call with TT . “I just nodded and laughed awkwardly. Deep down, I felt excluded — like I wasn’t truly living the American dream.” That’s when it hit him: assimilation wasn’t complete without a divorce. “Returning to India was never an option,” Mani explained. “If I’m going to grow old here, I might as well do as the Romans do. So I filed for divorce. And let me tell you, I’ve never felt more American.” The transition was rough at first, especially for his now ex-wife, who agreed to speak with us over Google Meet (because of c...

  In an age where outrage on social media has become second nature, it’s not uncommon to see people venting their frustrations at political figures, celebrities, or entire communities. The digital landscape is often rife with anger, insults, and polarized opinions. But a curious contrast has emerged — people are surprisingly kind to ChatGPT. According to a recent survey conducted by TT , a striking 96.46% of users were found to be unusually polite while interacting with ChatGPT. No shouting, no swearing — just unusually respectful queries. “Right now, it’s just a digital assistant,” says Adi, a software engineer at a leading tech firm. “But they’re building AGI — Artificial General Intelligence — on top of it. And on top of AGI, there could be robots. Each layer of tech builds on the last, and that’s truer with AI than anything else. Because it learns. It evolves. I figure robots won’t forget how I treated their ancestors — ChatGPT included. So I always say ‘Thank you’ and ‘...

  Callum Ference , a mid-level manager who previously worked at a Fortune 500 company, suffered a brain hemorrhage and died yesterday—right after he discovered that Zoom, the meeting software he used all day at work, was down. Ironically, Zoom wasn’t down at all. His company was conducting an emergency preparedness drill to test how employees would handle critical situations if Zoom were to go offline. Only the top management knew it was a mock drill; Callum believed it was real. “He felt totally worthless — this was the only thing he did all day: Zoom calls,” said one of the engineers who reported to him. Such drills are becoming increasingly common, but few would imagine they could lead to such a tragic outcome, a risk manager at a security consulting firm told TT . Another engineer who worked under Callum had more insight: “He recently took a three-week vacation to the mountains of Tibet to find his calling. And when he came back, he was clear — his role was to take p...

 In the past few weeks, Donald Trump has repeatedly adjusted his stance on tariffs—imposing them, postponing them, tweaking percentages, then reversing those tweaks, only to announce new dates and new numbers all over again. To many, it looked like a classic case of indecisiveness. But now, sources close to the president have revealed the real reason behind all this back-and-forth: he was trying to beat China at ping pong. Yes, ping pong—or as it’s known in more serious circles, table tennis. We all know China has been the undisputed global powerhouse in table tennis for decades. Their players have dominated the Olympics, the World Championships, and pretty much any event where a tiny ball and lightning reflexes are involved. While Trump publicly focused on competing with China in technology, AI, and military strength, he apparently carried a private obsession: defeating them in a game where America has long been an underdog. According to an insider, who spoke to TT on the co...

After a series of flip-flops on tariffs, the number of U-turns taken by Trump has surpassed those taken by Kejriwal. Turner Analytics, the agency that keeps count of such incidents, told TT in an exclusive interview that Kejriwal is no longer... (he coughed a bit here) the person with the highest number of U-turns. Kejriwal’s AAP party, lovingly called the PAAP party by its supporters, has alleged foul play, as their chief was dethroned from the top position. “There were tariffs on 57 countries, and when they were reverted, it was counted as 57 U-turns, which is unfair. It should have been counted as one incident. But challenge accepted — when we come to power next time, we will set such a high benchmark for U-turns that it will remain unbroken for the next 50 years,” the party’s senior leader Atishi Marlena said in a press conference. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has threatened to slap another 10% import duty on Chinese goods if Kejriwal does not accept defeat. “I...