Bengaluru startup employee says parents were not happy when he quit Microsoft: ‘now they’re smiling’

By Admin

23 Feb, 2026

From Microsoft to a Mission-Driven Startup

In a heartfelt story that resonated across social media, a Bengaluru-based startup employee shared how belief, patience, and perseverance can turn doubt into pride.

Harveen Singh Chadha, an LLM Researcher at Sarvam AI, revealed that his parents were initially unhappy when he quit Microsoft in April 2025 to join the emerging Indian AI startup.

Fast forward 10 months, and the story has taken a beautiful turn  his parents are now smiling with pride.

“10 months back parents were not happy when I left MS. Today when I reached, they were smiling,” Chadha wrote in an X post.

What changed? The growing national recognition of Sarvam AI.

What is Sarvam AI?

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Bengaluru, Sarvam AI is an Indian artificial intelligence company building large language models (LLMs) and multimodal AI systems tailored for Indian users.

At the recently concluded India AI Impact Summit 2026 in Delhi, Sarvam AI made headlines with the unveiling of its indigenous AI model  built from the ground up for India.

Key Highlights of Sarvam’s AI Model

• Voice-first AI service
  
  

• Supports nearly two dozen Indian languages
  
  

• Designed for users who cannot comfortably read or type in English
  
  

• Built to serve India’s 1.45 billion population
  
  

In a country where digital access is growing rapidly but English fluency is not universal, this approach gives Sarvam a strategic edge.

The startup’s innovation has even drawn praise from global leaders, positioning it as a serious contender in the AI space.

A Small Win, A Long Journey

Chadha shared how his proud parents have been collecting every mention of Sarvam AI in newspapers and television channels.

“Dad showed me all the news channel recordings, newspapers mentions of Sarvam. Mom told me how she promoted Sarvam in WhatsApp groups and to neighbours,” he wrote.

He described it as “a very small win but a long way to go.”

The post quickly gained warm reactions online:

• “Build from India. Build for world. We are having the opportunity to leapfrog generation of gaps.”
  
  

• “Working for the country is the proudest thing anyone can do.”
  
  

• “There is something special about seeing doubt turn into quiet support.”
  
  

The emotional journey reflects a larger narrative  the growing confidence in India’s startup ecosystem.

Indigenous AI and National Sovereignty

At the summit, Sarvam co-founder Vivek Raghavan emphasized the importance of developing indigenous technology.

Speaking at the India AI Summit 2026, he highlighted how many global technologies were historically proprietary, prompting India to create open-source public digital infrastructure.

“Many of these technologies were proprietary technologies, and we built this kind of self-created technology that is open source and a public infrastructure that is available to all of us and that led to the creation of the India stack. So when you look at it over the course of long periods of time, sovereignty will always trump technical beads,” Raghavan stated.

His remarks underline a critical vision: technological sovereignty is not just innovation  it is national strategy.

More Than Just a Career Move

Harveen Singh Chadha’s story represents more than a personal milestone. It reflects:

• The shift from multinational comfort to startup courage
  
  

• The rise of India-first AI innovation
  
  

• The emotional journey of families adapting to a new entrepreneurial era
  
  

• The growing pride in building technology for the nation
  
  

For many young professionals, leaving a global giant like Microsoft for a startup may seem risky. But stories like this prove that conviction, when backed by vision and execution, can turn skepticism into celebration.

And sometimes, the biggest success is not just building cutting-edge AI  but seeing your parents smile with pride.