@viraj.ala: Everyone wants to be the founder. She chose to be the one who actually builds the product.. and it has touched millions of lives. Her lesson? The best thing you can do for your career is refuse to be cookie-cutter. Priya runs product at Archetype AI. Before that, Lightning AI. Two companies worth around $500 MILLION combined. A master’s in computer science from Virginia Tech. An MBA from Chicago. She jokes that she has too many degrees. But the thing that actually set her apart was never her resume. It was pure intellectual curiosity. The need to understand how everything works. The worst advice she ever got? Don’t ruffle any feathers. What she learned instead was to question the status quo at every turn. Because that is exactly where innovation comes from. Her advice for women trying to break into tech? Figure out your superpower. What you alone bring to the table. You don’t have to be the founder, or the loudest person in the room. Just find a way to add real value, and be true to it. And the one lesson she lives by? Learning should never stop. It is the reason her work has never once felt like a job.
