How Indians Defied Gravity and Achieved Success in Silicon Valley

[Parsad]

Dhandho moves from motel/hotel dominance to startups.  Thanks to Shai for the article!  Cheers!

 

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/15/how-indians-defied-gravity-and-achieved-success-in-silicon-valley/

[Palantir]

That's right b****ez!

[turar]

The "hotel/motel" mention reminded me of a pretty good article from 1999: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/04/magazine/a-patel-motel-cartel.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

 

It's worth a read.

[fareastwarriors]

I;m not Indian but thanks for sharing these articles. very interesting. I enjoyed reading them.

[Parsad]

I;m not Indian but thanks for sharing these articles. very interesting. I enjoyed reading them.

 

Personally, when I post these things, it has hardly anything to do with say the "Indian" side, but instead the question of "Why is it that way?".  Whether it is Coca-cola's moat, manufacturing in China, prevalence of Jews in media, obesity in North America, etc".  There is some sort of trigger (possibly cultural, industry-related), or an event (coup, war, famine, excess wealth, consolidation) that leads to this type of asymmetry. 

 

For example, going back to the motel/hotel business...it's not all Indians were dominant in that area, but a very specific group...gujurati's.  And they were persecuted in various adopted countries, eventually fleeing to the U.K. and North America.  Not that dissimiliar to the Jewish experience immigrating to the United States.  So from that article, the question that begs is "Why Silicon Valley?  Why startups, and say not engineering positions for other companies or the government?"  Cheers! 

[berkshiremystery]

On a side note,... after reading the article, and the author name Neesha Bapat. I was struck by surprise by her university name, a so called "Singularity University". I was thinking immediately about Ray Kurzweil and his book "The Singularity Is Near". And after searching the university name on Wiki,... Bingo!  I find it very interesting to have a university that's researching exponentially advancing technologies and Moore's law.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_University

 

http://www.singularityu.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest FFHfan]

I;m not Indian but thanks for sharing these articles. very interesting. I enjoyed reading them.

 

Personally, when I post these things, it has hardly anything to do with say the "Indian" side, but instead the question of "Why is it that way?".  Whether it is Coca-cola's moat, manufacturing in China, prevalence of Jews in media, obesity in North America, etc".  There is some sort of trigger (possibly cultural, industry-related), or an event (coup, war, famine, excess wealth, consolidation) that leads to this type of asymmetry. 

 

For example, going back to the motel/hotel business...it's not all Indians were dominant in that area, but a very specific group...gujurati's.  And they were persecuted in various adopted countries, eventually fleeing to the U.K. and North America.  Not that dissimiliar to the Jewish experience immigrating to the United States.  So from that article, the question that begs is "Why Silicon Valley?  Why startups, and say not engineering positions for other companies or the government?"  Cheers!

 

As for Jewish immigrants (Ashkenazi Jews) in North America who work in media. They already worked in media before, be it as great film writers, theater writers or as actors, because those jobs offered independence and the people in the media were more open-minded and tolerant than the gerneral public. With the rising discrimination in the 30s and 40s in Europe, they wanted out and North American film studios and theaters came (happily) knocking on their doors and offered them help with visas if they would work for them from now on. European film and theater needed a lot of time to recover, if they ever have.

 

It's not dissimilar with Indian immigrants, who left India or an African country because of more opportunity and freedom in North America. A lot of them had prior job experience or the right education. Most left India because of lack of opportunity, you can thank socialism for that. My folks are from Kerala and communists fully ruled that place for a long time. The communists are still there, but not as strong as in prior decades. That said, I hope more talented Indians come back home to India to start new companies in India and be successful. How else do want to reduce poverty over the long term.

 

As an Indian myself, I'm very proud of every Indian who succeds in his or her professional endeavor, be it Prem or Prasad :), why shouldn't we be. It's like the African American community who's proud of the achievement of Barack Obama to be president, or the Jewish community being proud of Steven Spielberg, Albert Einstein or Levi Strauss, or the Irish community being proud of the Kennedys or Chuck Feeney. Nothing wrong with that.

 

Regarding obesity in North America. Well it's not just in North America anymore. It's Europe, sadly a lot in Germany as one can observe during summer and Asia. Reasons might be the lack of physical exercise, eating too much, because food is cheap. There are a lot of folks who rarely cook every meal at home, and buy food from a restaurants or oven-ready meals from the next supermarket.