A LinkedIn post about a teenager reportedly earning nearly Rs 1 crore every month through AI education programmes has captured widespread attention online,
with many social media users expressing both admiration and disbelief at his journey. The story was shared by Topmate co-founder and CTO Dinesh Singh, who highlighted the rise of Ayush Singh, a 19-year-old self-taught AI engineer. According to Singh, Ayush achieved success without the advantages typically associated with India's tech elite. “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 gained traction on X and other social media platforms. According to Singh, Ayush's journey began during the Covid-19 pandemic when he was just 13 years old. As his family faced financial difficulties, he turned to online learning, teaching himself machine learning using limited resources, including an old laptop, unstable internet access and freely available educational material. His dedication soon began yielding results. Singh claimed that within a relatively short period, Ayush started working with overseas startups. By the age of 14, one of the educational courses he created had reportedly been recommended publicly by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Over the following years, Ayush expanded his experience across multiple AI-related roles. Singh said he contributed to natural language processing systems for a US-based startup, worked as a data scientist and MLOps engineer, founded Antern and later co-founded Second Brain Labs. Despite building an impressive résumé, monetising his knowledge remained a challenge. Singh explained that while Ayush was already teaching AI concepts to aspiring engineers across India and helping them access opportunities in the field, converting that expertise into a scalable business proved difficult. “What was missing was packaging, positioning, and a system to sell it. That is the part Topmate helped build,” Singh wrote. According to the post, Ayush now generates approximately Rs 1 crore each month through premium AI learning cohorts hosted on the platform. Singh argued that the story highlights a broader opportunity within the creator economy, where many individuals possess valuable expertise but struggle to turn it into a sustainable source of income. “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.
The post quickly attracted widespread engagement online, prompting a flood of reactions from users.
“My 28-year-old self is feeling jealous and depressed seeing so many kids achieve so much at such a young age,” one user wrote.
Another commented, “This is so inspiring,” while a third simply described the story as “Unreal.”
