Shashi Tharoor narrates this telling incident where an American interviewer once asked the Infosys founder N Narayana Murthy (NRN) about his son's future plans. NRN said he hoped his son would make it to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). What about Harvard? Well, if he didn't go to IIT, there's always Harvard - the safety net, as it were, NRN said.

Which numerically speaking of course makes sense, given that acceptance rate in the IITs was less than a per cent, while you stood an 8-11 per cent chance of making it to Harvard instead - and perhaps picking up a Nobel some day, if not dropping out to rule the world!