Latest news with #Kalra
India Today
12 hours ago
- Business
- India Today
Delhi man's post on India's middle class life in 1970 vs 2025 sparks discussion
A LinkedIn post drawing a stark contrast between middle-class life of Indians in 1970 and 2025 has triggered a discussion on social Kalra, founder of a Delhi-based company, shared the post contrasting the stable path of the past with the chaotic, high-pressure reality of today.'In 1970,' Kalra said in his post, 'you go to college, get a degree, learn one skill, get a job, earn a good salary, buy a nice house, get married, have three kids, and you're set for life.'advertisement However, he described 2025 as an era where 'you compete with millions to go to college, start with debt, get outdated in two years, keep upskilling, face low appraisals and high inflation, and both partners work just to afford to raise a single child.'Kalra concluded his post with a sharp note of irony: 'But sure, the economy's 'booming.''Take a look at the post here: In the comments section, meanwhile, several users acknowledged the growing pressures of modern life, especially for younger generations.'You are absolutely right,' a user said, linking the rising pressure to India's rising population since the 1970s. 'Now there's an entrance exam for everything, whether it's college or jobs.'advertisementAnother user added, 'The never-ending cycle of upskilling, inflation, and mental health struggles? That's the reality for many today.'Some users offered a more optimistic take: 'If you learn how to invest well from your first salary, you can live easy in any era. Life's not a competition. Just relax and enjoy your time on the planet.'The most balanced response, however, came from a user who said, 'Yes, there's more opportunity today, but also more overwhelm. In the 1970s, success was linear. In 2025, it's iterative. We're not building one life - we're rebuilding it, skill by skill, every 2-3 years.'Must Watch
NDTV
a day ago
- Business
- NDTV
Delhi Man's Post Comparing Indian Middle Class In 1970 To That In 2025 Sparks Discussion
A Delhi-based entrepreneur's LinkedIn post comparing the life of a middle-class Indian man in 1970 to that in 2025 has sparked a debate online, raising questions about whether India's economic boom has come at the cost of personal stability and peace of mind. In his post, Himanshu Kalra, the founder of Binoloop, wrote that in 1970, a middle-class life followed a relatively secure path. "You go to college, get a degree, learn one skill, get a job, good salary, nice house, get married, have three kids, raise a family of five. "You're set for life," he wrote, summarising the journey of a middle-class man in the 1970s. But in 2025, Mr Kalra highlighted a far more chaotic life, where you compete with millions to go to college, only to start adult life with education loans. You then get a degree and learn skills, but they all become obsolete within two years. Even the job competition is fiercer than ever. To top it all, there is high inflation, low appraisal, combined with continuous upskilling. You get married, have one kid, and both partners work to just stay afloat. "Mental health? Figure it out yourself," Mr Kalra wrote. "Sure, the economy's booming," he concluded. Take a look below: Mr Kalra's post has triggered mixed reactions. "You are a absolutely right, but there is another factor which has contributed to this situation that is rising population, I guess everything is linked with the high population. Its the reason now a days there is an entrence exam for almost every thing, let it be jobs or getting admission into college," wrote one user. "I see both sides of this every day. Yes, there's more opportunity today but there's also more overwhelm. More choice, but less clarity. More access, but also more anxiety. What strikes me most is how resilience has replaced stability as the modern currency. In the 1970s, success was linear. In 2025, it's iterative. We're not building one life we're rebuilding it, skill by skill, every 2-3 years. It's why I believe career guidance today isn't just about jobs it's about capacity-building for a world that never stops changing," explained another. "The never-ending cycle of upskilling, inflation, and mental health struggles? That's the reality for many today," expressed a third user. "Dude, if you learn how to invest your money well right from your first salary, you will have an easy life during any era... Mental health is easy, no need to take any stress. Just relax and chill. Life is not a competition. It is for us to enjoy our limited time on the planet," one user commented. "And still boomers will say, oh you have it so much easier than us. We used to do X after so much difficulty. Empathy is only when both sides can understand each other's struggles. You forgot the unhealthy lifestyle, the stress, the constant dopamine boosters all around, adulterated food, contaminated air and water. I can go on and on," wrote another.
Time of India
13-06-2025
- Time of India
City condoles sr adv Kalra's death
The legal fraternity of the city has condoled the death of Akhilesh Kalra, senior advocate at the Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court. Kalra, 65, passed away at a city hospital after brief illness. He was practising for the past 40 years. Follow more information on Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here . Get real-time live updates on rescue operations and check full list of passengers onboard AI 171 .
Indian Express
02-06-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Should you intern at a big tech firm or startup? OpenAI engineer offers career advice
Many young college graduates around the world, particularly in India, aim to become software engineers. But they often face an important question: Should they kick off their careers at a big tech company such as Google or Microsoft? Or should they take a chance on a startup like OpenAI? An OpenAI engineer believes that interning at both a big tech company and a startup will help students get a clearer sense of the career path they want to take. Janvi Kalra, who is part of the technical staff at OpenAI, said that students should diversify their experiences after college. In an appearance on an episode of the podcast 'The Pragmatic Engineer', Kalra said that both tracks have positives and negatives. Kalra's comments come at a time when entry-level tech jobs are being directly impacted by AI. SignalFire, a VC firm that analyses job movements across 80 million companies on LinkedIn, reported that major tech companies—including Meta, Microsoft, and Google—recruited fewer recent graduates in 2024 compared to previous years. New graduates accounted for just 7 per cent of new hires in 2024, down 25 per cent from 2023 and over 50 per cent from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. At startups, the rate of new graduate hiring dropped from 30 per cent in 2019 to under 6 per cent in 2024. After earning a degree in computer science from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, US, Kalra interned at Microsoft and Google. She then worked at a productivity startup called Coda before joining OpenAI, as per her verified LinkedIn profile. She said that given the opportunity, gaining experience with both startups and larger firms early on in one's career would be beneficial. 'Given that Big Tech and startups are such different experiences and you learn so much at each, it would be more educational to do one startup internship and one Big Tech internship to get a very robust overview of what both experiences are like very early,' she said. According to Kalra, some of the upsides of joining big tech companies include financial benefits, potential prestige, less pressure, more time to work on projects, and learning to build software at scale. 'It's very different to build something that works, versus build something that works when it's swarmed with millions of requests from around the world and Redis happens to be down at the same time. Very different skills,' she said. 'There are also practical, good reasons to go to Big Tech. I'd get my green card faster. I'd get paid more on average. And the unfortunate reality, I think, is that the role does hold more weight. People are more excited about hiring an L5 Google engineer versus an L5 from a startup, especially if that startup doesn't become very successful,' she added. Kalra also pointed out that there were several reasons to work at a startup, such as the experience of programming software from scratch as well as tackling challenges on your own. 'From a software engineering space, maybe one quarter you're working on a growth hacking front-end feature, and the next quarter you're writing Terraform. But even in terms of the non-technical skills, you get an insight into how the business works,' she said. 'Startups also afford you more responsibility, along with a better chance of materially affecting the company with your work. You just get more agency in what you work on. You get the opportunity to propose ideas that you think would be impactful for the business and go execute on it,' she added.
Business Insider
01-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Should you join a startup or Big Tech out of college? An OpenAI engineer weighs in.
Janvi Kalra, an engineer at OpenAI, thinks students should diversify their experiences after college, with at least one internship at a Big Tech firm and another at a startup. That way, she said on an episode of The Pragmatic Engineer podcast, you have a better idea of what career path you should take. Kalra interned with Microsoft and Google. She then worked for productivity startup Coda before transitioning into her current role at OpenAI. She said both tracks have advantages and disadvantages. "The way I saw it, the upside of going to Big Tech was, first, you learn how to build reliable software for scale," Kalra said. "It's very different to build something that works, versus build something that works when it's swarmed with millions of requests from around the world and Redis happens to be down at the same time. Very different skills." Another good thing about Big Tech, she added, was the amount of time she got to work on projects that were under less pressure to immediately succeed. "Different upside for Big Tech in general was that you do get to work on more moonshot projects that aren't making money today," Kalra said. "They don't have the same existential crisis that startups do." And then, of course, more practically, were the financial upsides — including potential prestige. "There are also practical, good reasons to go to Big Tech," Kalra added. "I'd get my green card faster. I'd get paid more on average. And the unfortunate reality, I think, is that the role does hold more weight. People are more excited about hiring an L5 Google engineer versus an L5 from a startup, especially if that startup doesn't become very successful." Still, Kalra said, there are "great reasons" to go to a startup, like the sheer amount of experience you'll get with programming itself. "First, you just ship so much code, right?" she said. "There are more problems than people, and so you get access to these zero-to-one greenfield problems that you wouldn't necessarily get at Big Tech maybe where there are more people than problems." She said another advantage is the wide array of challenges that'll be thrown at you, allowing you to develop expertise on several fronts. "Second is the breadth of skills — and this is not just in the software engineering space," she said. "Right from a software engineering space, maybe one quarter you're working on a growth hacking front-end feature, and the next quarter you're writing Terraform. But even in terms of the non-technical skills, you get an insight into how the business works." Startups also afford you more responsibility, along with a better chance of materially affecting the company with your work, she said. "You just get more agency in what you work on," she said. "You get the opportunity to propose ideas that you think would be impactful for the business and go execute on it." Given the opportunity, Kalra said it's best to gain experience with both startups and larger firms as early in your career as possible. "Given that Big Tech and startups are such different experiences and you learn so much at each, it would be more educational to do one startup internship and one Big Tech internship to get a very robust overview of what both experiences are like very early," she said.
