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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Mighty Indians

So lots of things happened in the last few days but before some important announcements, I thought I would address another issue first. Two things happened which sort of increased the priority of this post prior to some other posts just waiting to be published. One took place in the Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (GEM) class that I am taking and the other took place while reading Gaurav's (my ex-boss!) blog which had an article from Forbes bullshitting India.

Tom Kosnik, who by the way i just admire - part of the faculty team for GEM, posed a question in class - "Name a few companies you would want to work for?" - Of course everyone named companies like:
  • McKinsey
  • Google
  • Apple
  • Microsoft
  • a few startups
  • IDEO
  • Sequoia Capital
  • Benchmark
  • IBM Research
  • Kleiner Perkins
  • Meebo

And then I heard two names - Infosys Consulting and Biocon. Ok - it was me who said Infosys consulting - but man the moment I heard Biocon from someone who was not an Indian and probably never lived in India - i couldnt believe my ears. I mean this is a really really sought after class and that too in Stanford - a class of 86 people - some of them - the smartest people on the planet - and they want to work in Biocon! Man this is just fantastic. Anyways, thought I would tell all you guys out there that we are really building companies which people want to work in - not just people living in India - but people across the globe - has mighty India arrived?

About Gaurav's blog and the Forbes article, well, the thing that someone took time out to bullshit us, well that in itself sorta says something! I think the comment on Gaurav's blog rebutting the arguments was really cool. I somehow agree with the view that complacency is really not requrired, we need ever more Ratan Tatas, Narayan Murthys, Kiran Majumdar Shaws et al - and need to do something about the living standards, the infrastructure, but we are getting there - and the point about solving all those problems first and then going forward with rest of the things is at best an idiotic thought. The article sort of smack of a veritable rebuke if anything, the author had facts to back it - but i did not see any reason to use language which would come off as offensive to people like me and you(perhaps). Khair, take home message I think is that it (the article) was a good reality check - and we need to keep reminding ourselves not to slow down - as the sang in Lagaan - "chale chalo chale chalo!"

1 comment:

Rudra aka Atul Shashank Kulkarni said...

I Just read the shitty article by "Cait Murphy". To me it looks like either this guy needs a visa to India or needs to understand basics of Indian economy (Rural) dynamics.

Education if he hilights as one of the needs of today's world then let me bring to everyone's notice that a "Baniya" not so literate can make good money in the "Indian" market. To Explain the dynamics of Indian Market I just quote an example...

Our population is in excess of one billion, so when I (if I) market a prodcut to one million I expect a small percent of it may be 10 percent to go and buy it at moderate rates the number is staggering 100,000[?] if I reduce the rate and the comodity is somethting like Common Salt then I can aim for a lot more. If I say I have half a billion customers of which only half come to me every month then I still have 250,000 Customers. Well and all this at the cost of peanuts if done in our illiterate India. My point here is when India turns in to a customer itself its potential is far more than world can imagine. And this author "Cait Murphy" went on to say WE can not become superpower without doing some xyz things...
Well too easy to say this when you are born in a country where your forefathers made mistakes and corrected them, we are making this India in to a big one with loads of potential and Zeal...

I feel this article is one peice of shit that needs to be flushed down the toilet and not bothered. It is not untill we believe in ourself that things will change. to understand the Indian progress you need to be an Indian Not an American or Brit or the likes...

As for the Bicon name said in your class dude I wish many more will come, but I would want us Indians to build them ratther than someone from outside build it for us.