Meet man, JEE Advanced topper who scored 453 marks out of 504, studied at IIT, rejected Tesla offer; now works as..., his name is..
Hailing from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, Janak Agrawal secured All India Rank(AIR) 2 in the JEE Advanced 2015. Media reports suggest that he has completed his Class 12 studies from ILVA Higher Secondary School, Indore, where he obtained 91% in his board exams. He scored 453 marks out of 504 in JEE Advanced 2015.
Janak was awarded the prestigious KVPY Scholarship by the Department of Science and Technology in January 2014 and later recognized as an NSEP Awardee by the Indian Association of Physics Teachers in January 2015 for his exceptional performance in the National Standard Examination in Physics.
He was an INPhO Gold Medalist, awarded by HBCSE Mumbai in January 2015, for his outstanding performance in the Indian National Physics Olympiad (INPhO), one of the highest honors in the national physics Olympiad program.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Janak attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay from 2015 to 2016, pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. In 2016, he took admission at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he pursued a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Janak pursued a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2019 to 2020.
Janak is currently the co-founder of Outspeed, a company based in San Francisco, California. Prior to this, he gained valuable experience working with various organizations, including Pierx S24 and Climate Change AI.
At 22, Janak made a bold decision that shocked many: he turned down an offer from Andrej Karpathy and the Tesla Autopilot team. Sharing a post on LinkedIn, he wrote,'At 22, I did the unthinkable: I turned down an offer from Andrej Karpathy and Tesla's Autopilot team. Bold move or just plain crazy? You decide. It was June 2020. COVID was at its peak, toilet paper was the new currency, and every company was laying off people faster than ever. Startups were disappearing like free donuts in the break room. I had 2 full-time offers – one from Tesla and another from a not so well known startup, AutoGrid. For anyone in their right mind, this would be an easy decision. But I couldn't imagine myself as another cog in Tesla's high-speed machine. So, naturally, I took my chances on AutoGrid.'
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