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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

September - 2006 - issue > How I Got Where I am Today

The World - His Oyster

Poonam Ramakrishnan
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Poonam Ramakrishnan
Within a year of Amit Agarwal’s entry at Amazon in 1999, the media ran a riot of criticisms on the company’s ailing businesses. It was a testing time for Agarwal, but the 32-year-old seems to have believed in himself and Amazon’s technology without getting disillusioned then. “I never felt I was losing. Rather it was an inspiration to work towards betterment,” he reminisces.

Agarwal has always stood by merit. That is what his father prepared him for. “You need to come up through merit. I don’t have any money for donations. If you don’t take control of your future, you have the option of selling vada-pavs.” Wacky, it may seem, but these very words of his father inspired Agarwal to dream big and be self aware of his goals.

Realizing the importance of being ambitious and working hard, Agarwal struggled through schooldays, and was always the topper. With a burning desire to succeed, he prepared for the IITJEE and ranked 56th. Ironically though, he had a tough time explaining to his father why he wasn’t the 1st!

Though IIT Powai was a stone’s throw away from his home, his father forced him to go to IIT Kanpur to pursue his studies. “My father wanted me to stay away from family and understand the realities of life. It taught me to be strong in life and go far away rather than being stuck in the same place,” Agarwal recalls.

Adapting to the new environment helped him transform into an outgoing person from the introvert that he was. He ‘dreamt big’ and went to the U.S. to pursue his masters at Stanford University. With the likes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin in the same campus at that time, he could not afford to fall back in the race! “They were disruptive thinkers who thought long-term. Being born in a developed society, they had the right kind of exposure and hence could take risks.” Agarwal though had different priorities altogether.


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