I went from earning ₹9/hour to earning ₹2 lakh/hour in my 40s.
But it didn't happen in a straight line.
At 17, I was earning ₹9 an hour, teaching tuitions at Rs. 400/mth.
It increased to ₹14/hr, then ₹21/hr.
I thought, “Okay, this makes sense. Work hard, and it keeps going up.”
At 23, I moved to the US.
Through my stipend, I was now earning ₹200 an hour.
For the first time, it felt like I had made it.
When I returned to India, dropping out of my PhD, my hourly value fell to ₹134 with my new job.
At that point I made a risky decision.
I took out a loan, went for an MBA.
Instead of earning, I was now losing money every hour.
₹33/hour loss.
But that investment changed everything.
After that, I jumped to ₹370/hour, then ₹600/hour in a year, then ₹800/hour in a year.
And then I did something that looked stupid.
I took a 65% pay cut to startup.
My hourly value dropped from ₹800 to ₹330.
But this too compounded.
As the CEO of Groupon India, I was (in 3 years) making ₹4000/hour.
When I left in 2020 to build my teaching business, WebVeda.com, and content creation, I knew how to create systems that didn't rely on my time to scale.
I also hired a team.
Reduced my working hours to 25/week - but worked intentionally and strategically.
It paid off. I earn ₹2,00,000 per hour today.
We often think of careers like:
Study → job → salary keeps increasing → retirement.
But in reality, there are ups and downs.
Sudden jumps.
Going backwards to move forward.
From earning Rs. 9/hr 30 years back to earning 2L/hr today - my income has grown by 48% year-on-year.
No other investment - no stocks, real estate, or any other asset, will ever give me such returns.
The best investment I made was in myself.