The entrepreneur behind one of India’s most successful EV startups was once rejected by Harvard for an MBA programme. Tarun Mehta, the co-founder and CEO of Ather Energy, recently opened up about his journey from an IIT Madras student to corporate employee and eventually to helming a startup worth ₹26,800 crore.
During an appearance on the Best Places to Build podcast, Mehta opened up about how a failed Harvard Business School interview became a turning point that pushed him away from the conventional MBA route and towards building a company from scratch.
From IIT to Harvard rejection
Mehta grew up with a strong technical background, studying at IIT Madras, but admitted that early on, he had very limited exposure to entrepreneurship. In his final year, in 2012, he was still undecided about what he should do next — he was sitting for placements while simultaneously juggling the idea of doing a master’s or an MBA in the United States.
“Every senior at IIT who was doing financially well seemed to have gone down the consulting route or gone to masters in the US. So in my case, masters I was a little unsure of, but MBA seemed kind of sensible,” Mehta said during the podcast, which was released in January.
He applied for the Harvard Business School 2+2 program, and was selected for the in-person interview. Unfortunately, the interview did not go well.
“I made my parents pay for my flight to Boston, and I had an absolutely pathetic, disastrous interview. I was really not ready for the interview,” he admitted.
Mehta was also conscious of the fact that his trip to the US for the Harvard interview had cost his parents a considerable amount. “I think that kind of broke me for a while because I knew that I had burned through a lot of money of my parents to come for this interview. I knew I’m not going to get it. I didn’t get it. And I didn’t have a plan B,” he said.
Getting a corporate job
Mehta had to deal with a double blow — not only did he not land a spot at Harvard, he also did not get placed at his first company of choice, which was McKinsey.
“I thought I’m a damn good student. McKinsey toh le hi lega. ITC toh — I’ll say yes to ITC, worst case,” he admitted candidly. “Forget getting placed, I didn’t even get to interview at these places.”
He joined Ashok Leyland in Chennai after graduating from IIT Madras, while his friend Swapnil Jain—who would go on to become the co-founder of Ather—started working in Bengaluru.
Despite settling into their jobs, both Mehta and Jain continued to explore ideas on the side. During their final year at IIT, they had already filed multiple patents, including one around swappable battery packs — a concept that would later shape their thinking around electric mobility.
With relatively lighter workloads and time on their hands, Mehta began diving deeper into the electric vehicle (EV) space. He started reading extensively about battery technology, bought an electric scooter to understand the product firsthand, and even began speaking to EV users to learn about their experiences.
The start of Ather Energy
The turning point came in February 2013, when Jain decided to quit his job and move to Chennai to work on the idea full-time.
“Suddenly he calls me and says, ‘I resigned. I’m moving next week,’” Mehta recalled.
Caught off guard but convinced by the opportunity, Mehta soon followed suit. With limited financial risk and few obligations, he realised the downside of quitting his job was minimal.
“I was getting around 40 to 42k in hand every month,” he recalled on the podcast. “After rent, food, travel, it’s not like I was sending bucketloads of money back home.
“That made it easier. I didn’t have golden handcuffs. My downside was limited,” he said.
The two began working out of a lab at IIT Madras, focusing on building and refining their ideas around electric mobility. What started as experiments with battery packs gradually evolved into a larger vision — to build high-performance electric scooters tailored for the Indian market.
This marked the beginning of Ather Energy. Today, more than a decade later, Ather Energy is one of India’s leading EV startups. It was one of the first companies to sell e-scooters in India in 2018.
At the time of its IPO in 2025, Ather was valued at about $1.4 billion, according to data sourced by Tracxn. Today, it has a market capitalization of around ₹26,800 crore.
