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Time of India
3 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Sundar Pichai or Elon Musk: Which tech billionaire's education journey is more inspiring?
In the world of tech billionaires, few names hold as much weight as Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk . One leads Alphabet Inc., having just entered the billionaire club. The other, founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, continues to top global wealth rankings. But beyond wealth and business milestones, their academic paths tell very different stories. At a time when students are questioning the value of traditional degrees and exploring alternative routes, the academic journeys of Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk offer two sharply contrasting models. Each path reflects a distinct philosophy of learning and leadership for students. Sundar Pichai: The structured climb from IIT to Silicon Valley Born in Chennai, India, Pichai Sundararajan, known globally as Sundar Pichai, was raised by a father who worked as an electrical engineer at the British conglomerate GEC. His early interest in technology reportedly began with a fascination for landline telephones. What followed was a disciplined and merit-driven academic journey. Pichai earned his undergraduate degree in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, one of India's most prestigious engineering institutions. His academic brilliance won him a scholarship to the United States, where he pursued a Master's in Material Sciences and Engineering at Stanford University. He later went on to complete an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, distinctions awarded to students in the top of their class. The structure of his education mirrors a traditional path: academic excellence, global exposure, and business acumen, layered step by step. It's the kind of trajectory that many students, particularly international aspirants, still find relatable and aspirational. Elon Musk: The unconventional leap fueled by risk and range Elon Musk's early years reflect a different energy altogether. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk developed an interest in computing at an early age, teaching himself programming by the time he was 10. Unlike Pichai, Musk's academic route was shaped more by movement and multiplicity than by institutional loyalty. He first moved to Canada to attend Queen's University, partially to avoid mandatory military service in South Africa. After two years, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, earning two bachelor's degrees — one in Physics and another in Economics from the Wharton School. His interest in applied science and systems thinking runs through both disciplines. Musk briefly enrolled for a PhD in Applied Physics and Materials Science at Stanford University, but dropped out within days. Instead, he chose to launch his first startup, Zip2, marking the beginning of a career shaped by risk-taking and entrepreneurship. Musk's academic path was never about the degrees themselves. It was about how he could translate knowledge into action quickly. For students interested in interdisciplinary learning or those building toward entrepreneurial ambitions, his story resonates with the idea that traditional paths can be questioned and sometimes, skipped altogether. Two billionaires, two distinct models of learning By 2025, both men occupy vastly different roles in the tech ecosystem. Pichai is known for stewarding AI innovation within Google , including products like Gemini and DeepMind's advancements. Musk, on the other hand, is pushing boundaries through SpaceX's Mars missions, Tesla's autonomous driving goals, and xAI's foray into AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Their education journeys reflect their leadership styles. Pichai's education path prioritised structure, deep domain knowledge, and a strong understanding of institutional frameworks. Whereas, Musk's education served as a springboard for systems-level thinking, marked by rapid transitions and a preference for self-direction. For students, this contrast is particularly instructive. It reveals that both structure and spontaneity can lead to transformative leadership, but they demand different kinds of risk appetite and personal clarity. What students can take away from both In a time when online credentials, bootcamps, and AI-driven learning paths are disrupting traditional models, the education journeys of Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk offer relevant, grounded insights. Pichai's path affirms the value of deep specialisation, long-term learning, and gradual leadership ascent and Musk's route underscores the power of interdisciplinary curiosity, fast execution, and the ability to pivot without fear. Neither story is more inspiring in absolute terms. The answer depends on the student asking the question. If you're someone who finds strength in structure, benchmarks, and institutional credibility, Pichai's journey offers a map. If you're driven by experimentation, unconventional moves, and a thirst for building early, Musk's path lights a different road. In 2025, as students face growing pressure to 'stand out' early, both stories serve as reminders that there is no single formula for success. What matters more is whether your education, formal or not, is aligned with your sense of purpose and how well you're prepared to learn beyond the classroom. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How Trump's mass deportations could backfire on the American economy by shrinking paychecks
President Donald Trump has promised to unleash an economic boom that will turbocharge growth, fatten paychecks and chip away at America's mountain of debt. However, a new analysis from Trump's alma mater suggests that his immigration crackdown – a centerpiece of his second term – could do the exact opposite. Trump's policy of mass deportations would shrink most worker paychecks, erode gross domestic product (GDP) and spike the already-massive federal government budget deficit, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis shared exclusively with CNN. 'There is no question the US economy will get smaller as you deport a lot of the workforce,' Kent Smetters, professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said in an interview. 'You simply have fewer bodies to produce. Fewer people means a smaller economy.' During the 2024 campaign, Trump vowed to wage the biggest domestic deportation program in American history and eventually expel millions of people. The Penn Wharton analysis found that a four-year policy in which 10% of the nation's unauthorized immigrants are removed per year would increase federal deficits by $350 billion, reduce GDP by 1% and dent the average worker's wages. The higher deficits are driven by a combination of lost revenue and new spending required to make mass deportations possible – on top of the funding for border security, interior enforcement and deportations provided by the tax and spending cuts package Trump signed into law this month. If the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, the cost to the federal government would rise to $987 billion, GDP would shrink by 3.3% and wages would tumble by 1.7%, researchers found. Why many workers could get hurt by deportations That's not to say all workers would be harmed by the mass deportations. Penn Wharton concluded that authorized, lower-skilled workers – including US-born ones – would get a pay bump due to less competition. Wages for those authorized, lower-skilled workers would jump by 5% by 2034, the analysis said. However, if deportations are reversed after four years, wages for authorized low-skilled workers would eventually drop. 'Part of the promise of deportation is that those left behind are supposed to be better off. In reality, it's a much more mixed result,' Smetters told CNN. Penn Wharton found that the outcome for high-skilled workers is clearer: They'd be worse off. That's because unauthorized, low-skilled workers complement higher-skilled workers, defined in the analysis as native-born citizens, permanent residents and visa-holding immigrants with at least some college education. Higher-skilled workers 'are generally harmed by deportation more than authorized lower-skilled workers are helped,' the Penn Wharton analysis found, adding that higher-skilled workers have a bigger impact on paychecks and GDP and contribute more to taxes. High-skilled workers would suffer a $2,764 loss in annual wages on average if the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, Smetters said. 'If you're middle class to higher income, you're going to be hurt by deportation because you rely on lower-skilled workers to make your job easier and to make your life more comfortable,' Smetters said. Many farmworkers are unauthorized For instance, he pointed to office workers who are helped by lower-skilled employees who clean buildings, do security and help transport people. Lower-skilled workers, at times unauthorized, play central roles in various industries, including construction, restaurants and manufacturing. This is especially true in agriculture. Between 2020 and 2022, about 39% of crop farmworkers were US citizens, while 19% were authorized immigrants. That means the rest – 42% – held no work authorization, according to the US Department of Agriculture. 'There are a lot of jobs in the US that native-born people don't want – and foreign-born people are happy to have,' said Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research. The White House pushed back against the Penn Wharton findings. 'These sort of pedantic analyses miss the forest for the trees by not accounting for the immense costs that everyday Americans are forced to bear due to illegal immigration: violent crime, rising housing costs, eroding social trust and even the overbearing of emergency rooms,' White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to CNN. Desai pointed to research that finds more than one in ten young adults in the United States are neither employed, pursuing higher education nor in vocational training. 'There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force,' Desai said, 'and President Trump's agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this administration's commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential to build America's next Golden Age while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws.' It's true that some young people are having trouble finding jobs. The unemployment rate for those aged 20 to 24 stands at 8.2% as of June – more than twice as high as the national rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 'We need immigration' However, it's also true that America's aging population creates real challenges for the economy and businesses. Economists fear that as Baby Boomers continue to retire, businesses will struggle to find workers, a problem that would be compounded by a loss of foreign-born workers. Roth, the Wolfe Research economist, worries that mass deportations, along with the Trump administration's decision to terminate the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants, will cause some worker shortages and lift prices for consumers. 'We need immigration. Foreign-born workers are critical to the labor force – especially in this environment where the population is aging,' Roth said. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, said the Penn Wharton study 'illuminates just how critical rational immigration policy is to the wellbeing of the American economy.' He said the United States needs comprehensive immigration reform that features cross-border migration to support the labor needs of manufacturing, construction, agriculture and household maintenance as well as leisure and hospitality. The study 'strongly implies that the current path of immigration policy is not economically sustainable nor supportive of growth or narrowing budget deficits,' Brusuelas said. 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CNN
7 hours ago
- Business
- CNN
How Trump's mass deportations could backfire on the American economy by shrinking paychecks
Immigration Donald Trump Pay & incomeFacebookTweetLink Follow President Donald Trump has promised to unleash an economic boom that will turbocharge growth, fatten paychecks and chip away at America's mountain of debt. However, a new analysis from Trump's alma mater suggests that his immigration crackdown – a centerpiece of his second term – could do the exact opposite. Trump's policy of mass deportations would shrink most worker paychecks, erode gross domestic product (GDP) and spike the already-massive federal government budget deficit, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis shared exclusively with CNN. 'There is no question the US economy will get smaller as you deport a lot of the workforce,' Kent Smetters, professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said in an interview. 'You simply have fewer bodies to produce. Fewer people means a smaller economy.' During the 2024 campaign, Trump vowed to wage the biggest domestic deportation program in American history and eventually expel millions of people. The Penn Wharton analysis found that a four-year policy in which 10% of the nation's unauthorized immigrants are removed per year would increase federal deficits by $350 billion, reduce GDP by 1% and dent the average worker's wages. The higher deficits are driven by a combination of lost revenue and new spending required to make mass deportations possible – on top of the funding for border security, interior enforcement and deportations provided by the tax and spending cuts package Trump signed into law this month. If the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, the cost to the federal government would rise to $987 billion, GDP would shrink by 3.3% and wages would tumble by 1.7%, researchers found. That's not to say all workers would be harmed by the mass deportations. Penn Wharton concluded that authorized, lower-skilled workers – including US-born ones – would get a pay bump due to less competition. Wages for those authorized, lower-skilled workers would jump by 5% by 2034, the analysis said. However, if deportations are reversed after four years, wages for authorized low-skilled workers would eventually drop. 'Part of the promise of deportation is that those left behind are supposed to be better off. In reality, it's a much more mixed result,' Smetters told CNN. Penn Wharton found that the outcome for high-skilled workers is clearer: They'd be worse off. That's because unauthorized, low-skilled workers complement higher-skilled workers, defined in the analysis as native-born citizens, permanent residents and visa-holding immigrants with at least some college education. Higher-skilled workers 'are generally harmed by deportation more than authorized lower-skilled workers are helped,' the Penn Wharton analysis found, adding that higher-skilled workers have a bigger impact on paychecks and GDP and contribute more to taxes. High-skilled workers would suffer a $2,764 loss in annual wages on average if the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, Smetters said. 'If you're middle class to higher income, you're going to be hurt by deportation because you rely on lower-skilled workers to make your job easier and to make your life more comfortable,' Smetters said. For instance, he pointed to office workers who are helped by lower-skilled employees who clean buildings, do security and help transport people. Lower-skilled workers, at times unauthorized, play central roles in various industries, including construction, restaurants and manufacturing. This is especially true in agriculture. Between 2020 and 2022, about 39% of crop farmworkers were US citizens, while 19% were authorized immigrants. That means the rest – 42% – held no work authorization, according to the US Department of Agriculture. 'There are a lot of jobs in the US that native-born people don't want – and foreign-born people are happy to have,' said Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research. The White House pushed back against the Penn Wharton findings. 'These sort of pedantic analyses miss the forest for the trees by not accounting for the immense costs that everyday Americans are forced to bear due to illegal immigration: violent crime, rising housing costs, eroding social trust and even the overbearing of emergency rooms,' White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to CNN. Desai pointed to research that finds more than one in ten young adults in the United States are neither employed, pursuing higher education nor in vocational training. 'There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force,' Desai said, 'and President Trump's agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this administration's commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential to build America's next Golden Age while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws.' It's true that some young people are having trouble finding jobs. The unemployment rate for those aged 20 to 24 stands at 8.2% as of June – more than twice as high as the national rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, it's also true that America's aging population creates real challenges for the economy and businesses. Economists fear that as Baby Boomers continue to retire, businesses will struggle to find workers, a problem that would be compounded by a loss of foreign-born workers. Roth, the Wolfe Research economist, worries that mass deportations, along with the Trump administration's decision to terminate the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants, will cause some worker shortages and lift prices for consumers. 'We need immigration. Foreign-born workers are critical to the labor force – especially in this environment where the population is aging,' Roth said. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, said the Penn Wharton study 'illuminates just how critical rational immigration policy is to the wellbeing of the American economy.' He said the United States needs comprehensive immigration reform that features cross-border migration to support the labor needs of manufacturing, construction, agriculture and household maintenance as well as leisure and hospitality. The study 'strongly implies that the current path of immigration policy is not economically sustainable nor supportive of growth or narrowing budget deficits,' Brusuelas said.
CNN
7 hours ago
- Business
- CNN
How Trump's mass deportations could backfire on the American economy by shrinking paychecks
President Donald Trump has promised to unleash an economic boom that will turbocharge growth, fatten paychecks and chip away at America's mountain of debt. However, a new analysis from Trump's alma mater suggests that his immigration crackdown – a centerpiece of his second term – could do the exact opposite. Trump's policy of mass deportations would shrink most worker paychecks, erode gross domestic product (GDP) and spike the already-massive federal government budget deficit, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis shared exclusively with CNN. 'There is no question the US economy will get smaller as you deport a lot of the workforce,' Kent Smetters, professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said in an interview. 'You simply have fewer bodies to produce. Fewer people means a smaller economy.' During the 2024 campaign, Trump vowed to wage the biggest domestic deportation program in American history and eventually expel millions of people. The Penn Wharton analysis found that a four-year policy in which 10% of the nation's unauthorized immigrants are removed per year would increase federal deficits by $350 billion, reduce GDP by 1% and dent the average worker's wages. The higher deficits are driven by a combination of lost revenue and new spending required to make mass deportations possible – on top of the funding for border security, interior enforcement and deportations provided by the tax and spending cuts package Trump signed into law this month. If the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, the cost to the federal government would rise to $987 billion, GDP would shrink by 3.3% and wages would tumble by 1.7%, researchers found. That's not to say all workers would be harmed by the mass deportations. Penn Wharton concluded that authorized, lower-skilled workers – including US-born ones – would get a pay bump due to less competition. Wages for those authorized, lower-skilled workers would jump by 5% by 2034, the analysis said. However, if deportations are reversed after four years, wages for authorized low-skilled workers would eventually drop. 'Part of the promise of deportation is that those left behind are supposed to be better off. In reality, it's a much more mixed result,' Smetters told CNN. Penn Wharton found that the outcome for high-skilled workers is clearer: They'd be worse off. That's because unauthorized, low-skilled workers complement higher-skilled workers, defined in the analysis as native-born citizens, permanent residents and visa-holding immigrants with at least some college education. Higher-skilled workers 'are generally harmed by deportation more than authorized lower-skilled workers are helped,' the Penn Wharton analysis found, adding that higher-skilled workers have a bigger impact on paychecks and GDP and contribute more to taxes. High-skilled workers would suffer a $2,764 loss in annual wages on average if the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, Smetters said. 'If you're middle class to higher income, you're going to be hurt by deportation because you rely on lower-skilled workers to make your job easier and to make your life more comfortable,' Smetters said. For instance, he pointed to office workers who are helped by lower-skilled employees who clean buildings, do security and help transport people. Lower-skilled workers, at times unauthorized, play central roles in various industries, including construction, restaurants and manufacturing. This is especially true in agriculture. Between 2020 and 2022, about 39% of crop farmworkers were US citizens, while 19% were authorized immigrants. That means the rest – 42% – held no work authorization, according to the US Department of Agriculture. 'There are a lot of jobs in the US that native-born people don't want – and foreign-born people are happy to have,' said Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research. The White House pushed back against the Penn Wharton findings. 'These sort of pedantic analyses miss the forest for the trees by not accounting for the immense costs that everyday Americans are forced to bear due to illegal immigration: violent crime, rising housing costs, eroding social trust and even the overbearing of emergency rooms,' White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to CNN. Desai pointed to research that finds more than one in ten young adults in the United States are neither employed, pursuing higher education nor in vocational training. 'There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force,' Desai said, 'and President Trump's agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this administration's commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential to build America's next Golden Age while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws.' It's true that some young people are having trouble finding jobs. The unemployment rate for those aged 20 to 24 stands at 8.2% as of June – more than twice as high as the national rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, it's also true that America's aging population creates real challenges for the economy and businesses. Economists fear that as Baby Boomers continue to retire, businesses will struggle to find workers, a problem that would be compounded by a loss of foreign-born workers. Roth, the Wolfe Research economist, worries that mass deportations, along with the Trump administration's decision to terminate the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants, will cause some worker shortages and lift prices for consumers. 'We need immigration. Foreign-born workers are critical to the labor force – especially in this environment where the population is aging,' Roth said. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, said the Penn Wharton study 'illuminates just how critical rational immigration policy is to the wellbeing of the American economy.' He said the United States needs comprehensive immigration reform that features cross-border migration to support the labor needs of manufacturing, construction, agriculture and household maintenance as well as leisure and hospitality. The study 'strongly implies that the current path of immigration policy is not economically sustainable nor supportive of growth or narrowing budget deficits,' Brusuelas said.
USA Today
a day ago
- Business
- USA Today
Where did Trump's children go to college? See which schools they attended
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has steadily escalated his administration's battles against several elite universities, threatening billions in federal funding, challenging First Amendment protections, and stoking broader conversations over academic freedoms. Columbia University said on July 23 it reached a $200 million settlement with the Trump administration to halt federal investigations into alleged civil rights violations over on-campus Israel-Hamas war protests. Meanwhile, Harvard University is embroiled in a court case in a bid to win back more than $2 billion in federal funding for research the Trump administration froze, claiming the university has failed to address antisemitism. The administration has announced pauses or threatened to revoke federal funding to other top universities as well. They include Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, Princeton and the alma mater of the president himself and three of his five children, the University of Pennsylvania. Where did Trump's children go to college? Trump's youngest son, Barron Trump, broke family tradition when he chose New York University for his undergraduate studies, where he currently attends. Trump's other children either went to Georgetown or the University of Pennsylvania. Donald Trump Jr. went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in economics with a concentration in marketing and real estate, according to the university paper. Ivanka Trump, the president's eldest daughter, graduated from the same college in 2004, also with a bachelor's degree in economics. She did spend her first two years of college at McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Eric Trump graduated from Georgetown University in 2006, making him the second of Trump's children to not attend his alma mater. Eric earned a degree in finance and management. Tiffany Trump resumed the family tradition when she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in sociology in 2016, before attending Georgetown Law School. She graduated in 2020 with her Juris Doctor. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her atkapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
