[kamaal]

A lot of IIT kids go for a further MBA, and then want to work at an investment bank. Same as many Standford, MIT, <insert any Ivy league university here>.

The reason is obvious. In India people bet their lives and career on education. Namely Medicine and Engineering. Occasional other professions are CA, MBA etc also workout. Leave the rich kids aside. For most middle class folks, it takes lifetime savings and slogging by parents to get their kids till here. And it makes 0 sense for them, to take undue risk and bet on the start up lottery.

Go out and take a job, or do an MBA. Save a little here and there, invest in gold, kids and real estate. You might as well retire old, have enough money to put food on your table, pay for your rent, medical expenses and die gracefully.

Or ride the start up lottery, take risks. Fail. If no luck after a long time, watch your peers rise to big places in corporates- marry a girl, have kids,send them to posh schools, have a car and live in a 80L 3BHK Flat. While you are stuck here, amidst losses in business, life and most importantly terrible loss in time.

No one likes to spend best years of their life on tasks where there is 90% failure, Especially in a country like ours battling corruption and bureaucracy.

Besides, start up scenario is not very glorious in India. Recently I interviewed for a Start up in Bangalore. After interviews went fine, and they were ready to offer me. We sat down for negotiations. They were neither ready to offer stocks, nor a good pay, nor perks, no incentives.

In short he tried to tell me to spend years of my life working very hard to make him rich, and him rich alone. For a meager salary and absolutely nothing else.

For incentives like these, why would anybody want to work at a start up?

[wpietri]

This strikes me as some cultural equivalent of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Internet startup people are generally focused on the top layers, self-actualization and esteem. They are confident they can meet the more basic needs (love, safety, food & water) somehow, even if the business fails.

[kamaal]

That is true only for US start ups or in general people from developed nations. That's because most of your basic needs food, clothing and shelter are to an extent taken care of. For example social security is a very good thing in the US. If you are screwed, the government can support you for a while. So you can always dream a little big as smaller things are taken care of. You can focus your energy on doing things that are more important and add more value.

In India, you have to worry about all the low level things. Else you are screwed. If you don't have enough savings in old age and your kids refuse to take care of you, you are screwed. Because you have no money, no place to live, no food to buy, no clothes, no health care. Forget of all that even as a youngster, you will have a tough time if you aren't earning well.

I think a part of a larger plan for India must be first achieve food security, a good social security system, and a sound health care means. Else people will never have the freedom to work on more important things, and will go in cycles working for the most basic needs.

But things are changing now.

[krishnakv]

So do I hear a +1 for good social security? Looks like a very clear line from having social security and a safety net to leading in science, tech and inventions/ start-ups, which is growth, i.e. the lifeblood of any economy.

[kamaal]

Not everyone thinks like that. Besides when a person wants money for survival larger view of the economy is the last he will care about.

All I'm saying is people who work their whole lives to get their kids a decent education and those kids themselves are most likely to take a safer path in life. Because they want all their sacrifice to result in a better life. I am not saying start ups don't offer that. But start ups are often risky and ridden by failures. Who would like to be in a situation where they see their parents slog their whole lives to put them a decent place, and now as kids they waste all that by failing in things whose risks they understood pretty well. In such cases, will the parent lives, their work have any meaning?

Now imagine a situation if your basic education, food, clothing and shelter are more or less taken care of. You have good medical care. You don't have to take any risks to just survive. You know if you fail, you always have some basic things taken care of. The infrastructure is there, there is lesser corruption and bureaucracy to worry about.

When you ask why people are afraid to take risks its the former reason.

In the latter situation risk only has a time value, and nothing much.