'Your salary won’t save you': Saurabh Mukherjea says middle class must brace for a hard reset

The salaryman is dead — and if you're still chasing promotions and pay raises, you're next.

India’s middle class must brace for a hard reset, warns Marcellus Investment Managers founder Saurabh Mukherjea. 

Speaking on the Bharatvaarta podcast, he declared the end of the salaried career path: “Exit the salaryman… that construct is broken.”

The days of working 30 years in one company, climbing ranks, and collecting steady paychecks are over. In its place? A world where everyone must become an entrepreneur — not by choice, but by survival.

“You are your own little company now,” Mukherjea said. Whether running a business or freelancing, people must market themselves, pitch their skills, and earn from multiple — and unpredictable — sources. “The good news is, you can still make good money. The bad news: it won’t be stable.”

For talented professionals, this shift is an opportunity. A digital marketer boxed in by corporate limits can now earn more as a freelancer. But for the average employee who leaned on job security? “Life gets much tougher,” he said.

Mukherjea calls it a “massive cognitive load.” The middle-class mindset — do your job, wait for your raise — must be dismantled. “We were trained to be doers. That model’s gone. Now you must be the CEO, CFO, and intern of your own life.”

It’s not just an economic shift, but a mental one. “We used to ask, what can the company do for me? Now it’s: I am the company.”

The JFK quote, he says, captures the future of work: ask not what your company can do for you — ask what you can do for the labor market.

In this new world, predictability dies, skills reign, and the only safe job is the one you create for yourself.