Hari Prasad Renganathan got rejected from the H1B lottery three times. Most people in that situation spiral. They scramble for a second master's, beg their company for an internal transfer, or start mentally preparing to go back home.

Hari texted 10 YC startups, got callbacks from four of them, landed an offer as a Senior AI Engineer, and moved to London. The UK work visa took three weeks. No lottery.

But here's the thing — that's just the final chapter of a pattern that's been repeating his entire career. Every time Hari hit a wall, he did the thing nobody else was willing to do.

He applied to Columbia with a mechanical engineering degree from Tamil Nadu. No CS background. His GRE score was so average he deliberately withheld it from his application. He wrote an SOP that broke every template the admissions consultants swear by. He got in.

After Columbia, he couldn't land an interview for four months. When a senior data scientist on his team quit, Hari walked up to the decision maker and said — and I'm quoting him here — "I'll be much cheaper than that guy." He got the full-time offer.

Then he launched My Real Product, a community workshop where he helped data scientists and AI engineers stop building cookie-cutter Kaggle projects and start building actual products with real users. He put up a LinkedIn post expecting 20 people. 470 showed up.

We also get into the AI conversation. Hari has a take on the whole "AI won't replace you, but people using AI will" thing. He disagrees. So do I, actually. He breaks it down into four layers of AI replacement and where you need to be if you want to be the last person standing. Whether you agree or not, it's the most specific framework I've heard anyone lay out on this topic.

This conversation is for you if you're an international student navigating the US visa system, if you're trying to break into data science or AI without a traditional CS background, if you've been following every template and wondering why nothing is working, or if you just want to hear what happens when someone refuses to take no for an answer at every single turn.

Timestamps, links, and ways to connect with Hari are all below.

If this episode helped you think differently about even one thing, share it with somebody who needs to hear it.

Site: readysetdopodcast.com

Hari: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hariprasad20/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction & Connection
03:23 AI, Personal Branding, and LinkedIn Presence
05:29 From Mechanical Engineering to Data Science
10:11 Navigating the Columbia Application Process
14:56 Life at Columbia University
19:43 Transitioning from Student to Professional
23:26 Entrepreneurship and Building MyRealProduct
26:26 Problem Solving with Data Science
29:38 Building a Data Science Community
33:12 Rejection from H-1B Lottery and Exploring Career Paths

45:43 The Future of AI and Its Impact