21–27 of 27 posts
How many of you enjoy working with your Indian boss, respect him technically and as a person, and learn from him (not your Indian peers or subordinates, but boss)? There are significant cultural, regulatory/legal, and policy issues to be solved or evolved before India can take on Silicon Valley.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind being more explicit, for those of us who don't have direct experience with what you're talking about? At my last start-up, I had an Indian mentor, five years older than me, who had been through exactly what I was going through. I had tremendous respect for him, both “technically and as a person”. I learned more from him than I did from any of my non-Indian friends, co-workers, or bosses. He's thinking…
As an Indian, I am absolutely delighted to hear of your positive experience. Way to go for your mentor, and for you too. I have never had an Indian boss myself (I work in the US). But I have quite a few friends who have had, or continue to have (and who confide in me with their opinions and issues). Naturally I also know a lot of Indians in various industry or academic positions in the US (developers, managers, direc…
I'm Indian and as much as it pains me to say this, its not gonna happen so fast nor easily. India is different culturally than a lot of other countries who have a good R & D environment. For example, if a guy or girl is not married by 35, it is usually frowned upon by the society. This usually leads to people playing it out safe in the 28-40 years era where its safer to work in a bigco with guaranteed income. Pressur…
Agreed that Indian startups are still light years away from achieving the same _sophistication_ as the Silicon Valley's, but increasingly I am seeing more and more people jumping into getting their hands dirty. And given enough startups, purely from a statistical point of view, a few great startups will eventually emerge from India.
Unfortunately, I will have to agree with you that the state of R&D is poor, but it is just evolution. We started late and now have lots to catch up!
I’ll bet that in 5 years, if you stacked up a TechCrunch 50 of Indian start ups versus a comparable number of U.S. startups, it would be a pretty even match. I think there's something distinctly Indian about making 5 year plans, even if they sound ludicrous (when I lived there, many people told me that 'India would be a world superpower in five years'). I think it might have something to do with this: http://en.wikip…
I suspect that it's more "human" than Indian.
A five year plan is short enough that it looks reasonable but long enough that you don't have to do anything for a while at the beginning. And, when the 5 years is over, few people remember what they were promised at the beginning, especially if you've started a couple of other five year plans in the interim.
The five year plan may be ideal for getting resources to not do anything useful.
I'm Indian and as much as it pains me to say this, its not gonna happen so fast nor easily. India is different culturally than a lot of other countries who have a good R & D environment. For example, if a guy or girl is not married by 35, it is usually frowned upon by the society. This usually leads to people playing it out safe in the 28-40 years era where its safer to work in a bigco with guaranteed income. Pressur…
Well, you cite perfect examples of the parental and societal pressures that tend to work against founding a startup. But there is tremendous "underground" culture of startups in India. Case in point, have a look at http://pluggd.in/ or the startup event of India http://proto.in/ Agreed that Indian startups are still light years away from achieving the same _sophistication_ as the Silicon Valley's, but increasingly I…
Answer: Not in another 1000 years