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by obulpathi 2855 days ago
I came to US about 10 years ago. Finished my PhD and spent about 4 years in Software Industry. Saved some money. US has taught me a lot about entrepreneurship and software. Now moving to India for good to work on my own startup, spend more time with my hobbies and to stay close with my parents who are in their 60's. It took me more than an year to convince my parents (hardest to convince was my Mom) and my Wife. Looking back, I feel that is one of the best, courageous and hardest decisions I have taken in my life.

Also thanks to YC for accepting my Startup in to their Startup School Advisor Track. Namaste!

3 comments

Good luck! You taking in any tiny amounts of seed funding? (10K or less?)
Are your parents in the US or India?
My parents are in India.
It’s the right decision. You will be able to take what you learned home and create wealth for thousands, if not more. India is going to surpass China in the next century.
India is one of the hardest countries to do business in. On top of that, many businesspeople (not to mention the government) are dishonest and will happily run with your money. The "guanxi" situation outlined above very much applies in India.

I'd be curious to see how someone educated on American entrepreneurship performs.

India is going to surpass China in the next century.

Might need some anti-corruption startups to make that happen outside of cricket...

What is with this constant obsession with surpassing China. This is just so stupid.
India is going to surpass China in the next century.

Just curious, but this statement surprised me.

Surpass in what ways? GDP? Per capita income? Standard of living? Population? Level of honesty? Level of corruption? Level of transparency?

Any studies you can recommend that reach these conclusions?

Apart from population, in which factor ? India needs to reduce brain drain and population before even starting imaging compete with anyone.
India is going to be buckling under overpopulation, whereas China had already tackled that decades ago. Parts of India will be uninhabitable due to climate change, and there are already major water shortages.

However the Government does seem to be on the right track with their moves to introduce GST (replacing myriad taxes and duties from state to state) and cracking down on illegal cash.

We all know that diversity drives positive economic outcomes. India is by far the most diverse large country on the planet. That combined with her diaspora to the west and the consequent knowledge transfer, in addition to not being a major strategic rival to the USA, adds up to an extremely positive medium to long term outlook.

Yes there are major problems with corruption, it's true, but there are major problems with corruption in China and the USA for that matter. It's just in the USA the corruption is much more sophisticated and genteel. I mean this positively and I honestly believe Indian corruption is going to move toward the US model thanks to the large numbers of Indian nationals who have seen how much better that kind of corruption works. It's a classic case of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the less bad.

Do you have sources about diversity driving positive economic income ?

It seems to go without saying for you, but it's not that natural for me. There are several examples of very homogeneous countries, such as Japan or Korea, doing economical prowess.

http://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-bottom...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/ruchikatul...

There are many many other studies, all easily queried. There’s also the largest and richest country in the world as a case study.

The largest country in the world is Russia, and the richest is Iceland. Do you mean the US ?

If so, what makes you think the US got successful because of diversity instead of other factors ?

Similarly, there are studies showing that skill diversity is important, but not bio diversity. For example this meta-study[1] : "Support was found for the positive impact of task-related diversity on team performance. In contrast, bio-demographic diversity had no relationship with team performance"

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228389271_The_Effec...

Thank you and I too hope so!