Live data from Hacker News

Google to Invest $10B in India

techcrunch.com

81–90 of 349 posts

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My dear wife, please believe me ... we weren't having a sexual affair, I was just getting a BJ"

If you want the case that you chose to be similar to Google's tax maneuvers, that specific sexual act then would not forbidden in the contract. If what Goog is doing was forbidden, Google would be sued by DOJ in a heartbeat.

It was doing something forbidden and they were charged for it

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/google-italy-t...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tech-google-tax/go...

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#82
post #7

Getting the feeling China has blown it and successful companies looking to expand into Asia are now looking at India instead. I also saw that Foxconn is looking to build Apple products in India now too.

Companies don't invest billions in India to shaft China, they're doing it to maintain or grow their position on the Indian market, which is a huge one. If India suddenly sees a wave of "build it at home" sentiment then Google or Apple won't want to be left out and fall behind the competition. Publicly traded companies can't afford to play favorites, they "have to" go where the profits are and make the best of it, whe…

> Publicly traded companies can't afford to play favorites, they "have to" go where the profits are and make the best of it, whether it's decades of being the mole in a wack-a-mole game with the Chinese system, or having to invest extra billions in India.

True to some extent only. Apart from profits, publicly traded companies also clamour for a stable business environment. And authoritarian countries have an inherent risk, due to the nature of their government and uncertainty on the world stage.

No one can make 50 year plans for China, like they can do with US, Europe or UK. It's the same case with India too.

Democracies provide an extra level of stability.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#84
post #65
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China PR makes me question a lot of things. For example, I’ve always been told that protectionism doesn’t work but with the great firewall it seems to work just fine in China PR. How do I explain it?

The great firewall of China came because China wanted to police US social media operating in China but weren't able to. That it acted as a major enabler for China's own social media boom is (at least initially) an unintended side-effect.

It is certainly not unintended.

Even without their will to control information for political purposes they would have not allowed such a key industry to be controlled by foreign players, and they have a strategy of creating a strong national industry in all sectors.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India is so culturally dissimilar to the USA that it's almost laughable to suggest that they are similar. I'm not trying to be adversarial; I just don't see any logical basis -- aside from a few years of anglophone rule -- for your premise.

OP said more similar as opposed to "completely similar" which you are implying. India definitely is more of a western country when compared to China

For the context —- the framework to rule India was constructed by the British. While it’s easy to focus on the political structure, it should be noted that the day to day work is carried out by the bureaucratic apparatus, which was put in place by the British.

Institutions such as civil services, education framework, public works department, court, corporate laws, penal code etc are all from the British era, carried forward post independence with minimal change if at all.

It is this bureaucratic structure that makes India work and any work needs to make it’s way through this to get implemented. Whatever politicians promise is largely irrelevant, by and large because they’ve been known to get lost in this labyrinth of bureaucracy.

The Indian version of British comedy “Yes Minister” was quite popular in India, for a good reason as Indian could relate to it .

So yes, Indian ruling structure is definitely closer to “West” than to China. But we could be more specific and say it’s close to British, because they were the ones who put it in place to begin with.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#86

Getting the feeling China has blown it and successful companies looking to expand into Asia are now looking at India instead. I also saw that Foxconn is looking to build Apple products in India now too.

China hasn't "blown" anything - it is set to compete with US head to head on the world stage not with India over US investments.

China is an heavily export oriented economy losing access to the markets of the advanced economies day-by-day. Their play is to pivot into a consumer market before their foreign reserves eventually dries up, but that's hindered by the large population.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#87

Getting the feeling China has blown it and successful companies looking to expand into Asia are now looking at India instead. I also saw that Foxconn is looking to build Apple products in India now too.

I'm pretty sure that we're at the point where no one and nothing is putting the Chinese genie back in the bottle.

I don't agree with the CCP on many things, but China has stood up.

At this point the Chinese ascent can only be slowed down but they will only go down if they implode. Which I don't think anyone wants.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#88
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Chinese venture money more evil than Ambani owning everything?

>> How is Chinese venture money more evil than Ambani owning everything? Ambani can be dealt with a stroke of a pen when the goverment wants to. China on the other hand...

It's not China, it is Chinese VC money. And no, I don't see that the Government can deal with Ambani so easily, or even antagonise him with impunity. Winning elections cost money and with the new electoral bonds, Ambani can easily fund the opposition in the next elections.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it's not alarming for Indians that one key person/company connected to the govt is the sole beneficiary of incoming businesses into India.

It's wrong to characterize it as "one person being the sole beneficiary of incoming businesses in India" The recent spate of investments in Reliance JIO, have been just stake purchases. He is selling stake in his company to get capital for expansion. Ambani has signaled that he wants investment to further grow an already rapidly growing empire of media services. A few things are very favorable to Jio a) Due to COVID…

> Additionally, Reliance is highly respected in India. When the current CEOs father ran the company, millions of middle-class families in India bought houses, cars, got their children married, gathered retirement funds, etc riding on the sheer growth of Reliance as a company.

Reliance is one of the companies that actually care about retail investors, at times even going to extreme measures to help them. For instance, in 1982 they took on the notorious bear cartel and even beat them:

The bear cartel was successful in bringing the share price down but Dhirubhai was smart. He realized that if this bear cartel was allowed to go on, they would have taken the share price down to wherever they wanted, and you know who would have lost? Ambani wouldn’t have lost, it’s the small investor that would have lost money and they would have lost faith in Reliance. So he said, you can’t hammer my shares

Full story/podcast here:

https://www.capitalmind.in/2020/01/podcast-surviving-a-bear-...

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#90
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies don't invest billions in India to shaft China, they're doing it to maintain or grow their position on the Indian market, which is a huge one. If India suddenly sees a wave of "build it at home" sentiment then Google or Apple won't want to be left out and fall behind the competition. Publicly traded companies can't afford to play favorites, they "have to" go where the profits are and make the best of it, whe…

> Publicly traded companies can't afford to play favorites, they "have to" go where the profits are and make the best of it, whether it's decades of being the mole in a wack-a-mole game with the Chinese system, or having to invest extra billions in India. True to some extent only. Apart from profits, publicly traded companies also clamour for a stable business environment. And authoritarian countries have an inherent…

> clamour for a stable business environment

> Democracies provide an extra level of stability.

That's very true which is why I said "make the best of it" (i.e. "of a bad situation"). Companies will have to operate under different assumptions and making different plans than they would under normal conditions. Think "peace time vs. war time CEOs". But this is what makes these companies successful, the ability to juggle with unknowns, hostile conditions, uncertain future. It's a gamble but not that different from what Tesla or SpaceX did when jumping into the unknown. They're different types of unknowns but still just as risky, able to easily sink a ship.

Post reply on HN