IITs Launch Therapy Program for Alumni Traumatized by Not Becoming Billionaires

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...