I sit in CXO rooms
and the codebase.

In the 1990s, I had to choose between maths, science, and commerce for class 11. I was a teenager with no framework, no guidance, no idea what those choices meant for the next 30 years of my life. My teacher decided commerce was right for me — so I sat in the commerce classroom for two days, understood almost nothing, and told my mother I couldn't do it. I switched to maths. Not because anyone guided me there, but because I was guessing.

Three decades later, a family member finished class 10 and came to me with the same confusion. The choices had barely changed — maths, science, commerce, and now arts — and still no real framework to choose between them. Twenty-plus years had passed and nothing had improved.

I told him to use AI. He came back more confused — because for most students, AI is just a faster Google.

So my co-founder Preyanka and I are building Arete — an AI-first tool that actually understands a student: their interests, their hidden talents, their pace. It gives them a real roadmap, a weekly cadence to stay on track, and a living portfolio of what they've actually achieved.

Arete (ah-reh-TAY) is Greek for reaching your highest potential. That's the whole idea.

We're in private beta now, with early enterprise pilots. I'm building it in the open — you can follow along on LinkedIn.