His tutors said that he was the brightest of the bunch: that means, the brightest of millions.
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According to one of his tutors, quoted in the Times of India, Pichai was the “brightest of his batch”.
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In other words brightest of his class which is no more than a few hundred.
Given how difficult it is to get admitted to a college with the Indian Institute of Technology tag, brightest in millions is not an exaggeration.
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/indian-admissions/?_r=0
“The Indian Institutes of Technology, which are spread across the country, have an acceptance rate of less than 2 percent — and that is only from a pool of roughly 500,000 who qualify to take the entrance exam, a feat that requires two years of specialized coaching after school.”