IIT placements bring startups into a hiring war with the bigwigs, who wins?

Startups are offering higher salaries, bigger bonuses and more employee stock options (Esops) at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) this year, but despite securing first-day slots too, they are struggling to attract top talent as campus hiring shifts from mass hiring to picking a few high-quality candidates amid an AI-led productivity boost. At IIT placements, venture-backed startups like Razorpay, Fractal Analytics, Battery Smart, OYO, Navi, Meesho and SpeakX are aggressively competing with tech gi ...