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Google to Invest $10B in India

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Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#301

Post by naruvimama »

Sangama34 wrote: post #299
amrrs wrote: post #3

There's been a recent surge in American companies investing in India primarily through Reliance Jio (owned by Mukhesh Ambani who's got a good connect with the current ruling Government). It's been spiking since the Anti-China sentiment led Buy and Use 'Made in India' cries. Government has even asked eCom Flipkart and Amazon to display Country of Origin for each product. With all these, This investment from Google see…

India's potential is limited only by the incompetence of Indian government (irrespective of who is in power). Too many shady powers being involved here pulling the string. India's data localization law was in fact lobbied for by the real estate firms as they wanted foreign companies to be arm twisted into investing in real estate in India. You can search news for who benefits from this sort of wasteful expenditure.

Given its huge population which is a growing market, it does make sense putting data centers closer home.

Cheap power and cooling might be a factor, but India is also building huge solar and wind capacities, and not to forget the solar alliance and cross border solar energy exchange/grid.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#302

Post by sizzle »

kccqzy wrote: post #285
sizzle wrote: post #282

Between Apple and Google investing heavily in facilities in India, I wonder if this is the writing on the wall that is the start of building up outsourced H1-b teams in economical state-of-the-art headquarters while they transition down their real estate footprint in the Bay Area in the wake of the 'new normal' way of remote working due to Covid-19. Any predictions for the next 10 years if this will be a threat to on…

I don't understand. If they decide to hire more in India they won't need H-1Bs any more. Also, presidential cycles are short. A four-year presidency is simply not long enough to cause massive brain drain to be a threat for anything. But if the next administration continues to be myopic, I can see that trickle of brain drain turn into a torrent.

"I don't understand. If they decide to hire more in India they won't need H-1Bs any more."

That's exactly the point I was trying to make, that the former H-1B individuals will be hired to work at these new facilities in their homeland instead of bringing them to the bay area, as they no longer have physical working spaces here due to Covid-19 office closures and remote WFH for the foreseeable future.

Tech companies can then divest their expensive bay area real estate and shrink their HQ footprints to be a more global workforce and at the same time establish themselves in India and create custom hardware fabs away from Shenzhen and China, with lower cost savings of labor in India.

This will lower their H-1B hiring and talent acquisition costs drastically and the best and most talented H-1B's can instead work from the comfort of their home countries (e.g. India).

Thoughts?

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#303

Post by missedthecue »

billfruit wrote: post #216
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. All Indian startups combined raised a total of $14B last year (2019).

India probably has a rather small startup scene, that is not much of an argument.

It's not that small. I can name more Indian startups than Western European startups, and I have never even been to India. Of course everywhere is small compared to the US, but for what it is, India holds its own.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#305

Post by smenyp »

sizzle wrote: post #302
kccqzy wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. If they decide to hire more in India they won't need H-1Bs any more. Also, presidential cycles are short. A four-year presidency is simply not long enough to cause massive brain drain to be a threat for anything. But if the next administration continues to be myopic, I can see that trickle of brain drain turn into a torrent.

"I don't understand. If they decide to hire more in India they won't need H-1Bs any more." That's exactly the point I was trying to make, that the former H-1B individuals will be hired to work at these new facilities in their homeland instead of bringing them to the bay area, as they no longer have physical working spaces here due to Covid-19 office closures and remote WFH for the foreseeable future. Tech companies c…

But "this will increase salaries by reducing supply" is the common narrative on HN that one cannot fight.

Reasoning bottoms-up, you are right. This will reduce Bay Area footprint, and will allow good talent to join at lower costs. Couple this with top Indian talent in US not being treated fairly (most Indian immigrants have to wait 4-5 decades before being eligible for a green card even at Google / FB / etc..). The future for the Bay Area may not be as bright as the last 15 years. I certainly hope this isn't the case since I have a vested interest in the Bay Area but I do think longer term this is going to be the outcome though.. :(

Reasoning ground-up is not the faint of hear though. Most people want to extrapolate the world from the recent past based on their personal self-serving biases.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#306

Post by sabujp »

Sangama34 wrote: post #299
amrrs wrote: post #3

There's been a recent surge in American companies investing in India primarily through Reliance Jio (owned by Mukhesh Ambani who's got a good connect with the current ruling Government). It's been spiking since the Anti-China sentiment led Buy and Use 'Made in India' cries. Government has even asked eCom Flipkart and Amazon to display Country of Origin for each product. With all these, This investment from Google see…

India's potential is limited only by the incompetence of Indian government (irrespective of who is in power). Too many shady powers being involved here pulling the string. India's data localization law was in fact lobbied for by the real estate firms as they wanted foreign companies to be arm twisted into investing in real estate in India. You can search news for who benefits from this sort of wasteful expenditure.

corruption is caused by wealth, health, educational inequality, lack of familiy planning in many cases. If people can't feed themselves or their families they will turn to corruption and use any means to get ahead

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#307

Post by legolas2412 »

kranner wrote: post #103
enitihas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the Chinese government is far more involved with it's companies than India with any of it's non nationalized companies. China got Jack Ma to spinoff Alipay from Alibaba, screwing the other shareholders badly. I don't think there is anyy big company in China without CCP members high up in the ranks. Ambani on the other hand, however powerful he may be, is certainly not a bigger threat than China. Companies being…

> Companies being Ambani owned, while worse than a competitive market, is still much better than being Tencent owned. But better how, exactly?

China, an authoritarian state can and does use its financial influence to force it's interests. Do you not see how Chinese vc answer to china and not india? If you think they can just be banned, what else do you think is the Indian government doing?

Ambani is still subject to Indian laws, and even if he leaves, his wealth and empire is answerable to the Indian government.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#308

Post by legolas2412 »

kranner wrote: post #184
divs1210 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was no India before the British, then a) what was Christopher Columbus looking for? b) what was Vasco da Gama looking for? c) what were British/Dutch/French East India Companies looking for? d) what did Alexander's ambassador Megasthenes write about in his book Indica? e) where is Mahabharata set? Bharat is still one of India's official names. India has had a shared cultural history for a very long time. Tha…

The point here is not the historical name of the subcontinent or any shared cultural history (which all neighbouring states have). It is the lack of a common Indian government, comparable to the present time, that made the mistake of allowing too much investment by the EIC as you seemed to suggest. What the British Empire called India included parts of Afghanistan and Myanmar; modern India certainly has no claim over…

You're distracting from the point. It doesn't matter how strong the central government is or how divided the population is.

What we are discussing is foreign ownership and foreign power over India, and you just said that allowing EIC too much of these was a mistake

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#309

Post by aylmao »

newfriend wrote: post #287
munificent wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one can make 50 year plans for China, like they can do with US Five years ago, I would have agreed with you about the US. But the direction that politics have gone since then makes me a lot less sure. The rate that corruption has grown under the Trump without repercussions is absolutely astonishing. Like any relationship, I don't know how that break in trust between the government and its citizens can be repaire…

Give me a break. Very little has effectively changed in the past five years, aside from the insane polarization of the media. The Trump administration's "astonishing rate of corruption" you are perceiving is being massively overstated by partisan media outlets. Previous administrations were free to engage in all manners of corruption, while the mainstream media touted their "coolness".

There was definitley a lot of corruption in the USA before Trump. I do think it's also the case that under Trump things got more shameless, and so the administration "dares" to go further.

This is worrisome, especially if you don't think corruption is endemic of the Trump administration. New "boundaries" have been tested and set. Future administrations have a playbook that can allow them to get away with more.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#310

Post by legolas2412 »

enitihas wrote: post #179
divs1210 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was no India before the British, then a) what was Christopher Columbus looking for? b) what was Vasco da Gama looking for? c) what were British/Dutch/French East India Companies looking for? d) what did Alexander's ambassador Megasthenes write about in his book Indica? e) where is Mahabharata set? Bharat is still one of India's official names. India has had a shared cultural history for a very long time. Tha…

I think you misunderstood the parent poster's point. They are talking about India the nation, while you are talking of India the concept. India the concept existed. But India the concept is similar to America the concept or Europe or Africa the concept, not Germany or France. Also, before the British, the last empire to rule over almost all of modern day India was Ashoka, more than 2000 years ago.

Umm, the Mughal, the Guptas? Also the pratiharas, rashtrakutas and palas collectively ruled over india too. The Delhi sultanate was pretty huge too, and so was the maratha empire.

But being a single governance group isn't the point. Being culturally similar is what defines India. And it obviously is.

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