Taking inspiration from this, created HackerProducts, products that are recommended by hackers here!
8 karma · joined July 1, 2012
Startup 2: 2M$ (Joined as a mid level engineer, built the product ground up to scaling it to millions of users and hundreds of customers)
I did my undergrad in Mechanical Engineering from a small city in India. By 3rd year of Engineering, I realized I wasn't cut out to be a good Mechanical Engineer, as I wasn't enjoying CAD/CAM as much as I enjoyed writing C code. I decided it is in my best interests that I turn to programming as a profession, so I worked hard to get selected in campus placements to TCS (Yes, the same shit job which you said is beneath you). I took the job because none of the top tier companies would even look at my resume and this is best shot to work my way up. I spent close to 3 years of my time at TCS learning the basics of Programming, Web Development. Later based on my experience at TCS, I applied to top schools in US and got admitted into a top tier CS school. I took a massive education loan of 50k$ to pursue my MS in CS. Upon completion, after 13 attempts, I landed in a good start up and have ever since been working up the chain building products. I don't think I am an 10X Engineer, but I am regarded as one of the better Engineers in my company. It took a lot of motivation and courage to take such massive loans and pursue my higher education. I know of several people who have done something very similar to what I have done. So, please don't make these biased statements that just disparage the efforts of 1000's of students who come to US in hopes of a better tomorrow.