A founder shared the journey of Ayush Singh, a 19-year-old self-taught AI engineer who did not have elite credentials or financial privilege. A social media post about a young entrepreneur earning around ₹1 crore a month through his AI-focused venture has gone viral online, drawing admiration as well as envy from social media users. Taking to LinkedIn, Topmate co-founder and CTO Dinesh Singh shared the journey of Ayush Singh, a 19-year-old self-taught AI engineer who did not have elite credentials or financial privilege.The 19-year-old earns around ₹1 crore every month through premium cohorts hosted on the platform. (Representational image/Unsplash)“He’s not an IITian, not an MIT grad, and wasn’t born with a silver spoon,” Dinesh Singh wrote in the post, which later surfaced on X and gained widespread attention.The founder shared that Ayush was just 13 when the Covid-19 pandemic pushed his family into a financial crisis. Armed with “outdated courses, a patchy internet, a laptop, and a ridiculous amount of curiosity,” he taught himself machine learning, the post read.Singh claimed that within months, Ayush’s efforts paid off as he began working with startups abroad. By the age of 14, one of his courses was even publicly recommended by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.Singh said that over the years, Ayush went on to write natural language processing (NLP) systems for a US startup, worked as an MLOps engineer and data scientist, founded Antern, and co-founded Second Brain Labs. “By every measure, Ayush had made it,” Singh wrote.(Also Read: Dubai man recalls earning ₹60,000 in Mumbai in 2004, says copywriter pay barely changed in 22 years)But despite the accomplishments, one challenge remained. “Today, he's teaching AI to hundreds of engineers across India, helping them land the kind of work that once felt out of reach.” However, according to Singh, teaching itself wasn’t paying enough.“What was missing was packaging, positioning, and a system to sell it. That is the part Topmate helped build,” he wrote, adding that Ayush now earns around ₹1 crore every month through premium cohorts hosted on the platform.Singh said the story reflects a larger trend in the creator economy. “Just like Ayush, most creators are sitting on something people would gladly pay to learn, and almost none of them earn a rupee from it,” he wrote.“Ayush was sitting on a fortune he couldn't see. You might be too,” he added.(Also Read: Indian-origin woman, 23, quits Google to pursue podcast and AI startup: ‘Financial security can also be a trap')Social media reactsThe post quickly went viral online.Reacting to it, one user wrote, “My 28-year-old self is feeling jealous and depressed seeing so many kids achieve so much at such a young age.”“This is so inspiring,” commented another. “Unreal,” remarked a third user.Bhavya Sukheja is a Senior Content Producer at Hindustan Times with over 6 years of experience in digital journalism. She specialises in covering stories that reflect everyday human experiences, with a focus on viral videos, social media trends, and human-interest features that inform readers while sparking meaningful conversations. She loves chasing page views and finding stories that tug at readers’ heartstrings.