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by kamaal 4778 days ago
>>Growth in IT outsourcing is no more. Foreign investments are down big. There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english.

No and I thing you've got it wrong.

We are soon hitting a stage where we don't have to depend of foreign investments. Its happening, software is but just one aspect of foreign investments. There is real estate, retail sectors, education, manufacturing, automobile etc. That list can go endless.

Nearly every global company today understands if they don't come to India now, the local companies are going to eat their lunch big time and leaving all doors of making a entry later permanently shut.

Every time I see somebody good leave India I feel bad for them. They have no clue what they will miss over the next decades. With hardly any competition in a country where demands are rising so rapidly, almost anything you make people want will sell. Even if you make it badly.

Consider this with settling down in US, something like next half of your life will simply go in 'getting somewhere'. You will simply going there for your kids. And consider yourself lucky if they value your sacrifices and do something big out of it. Else there will be a situation where post 30 years your kids might want to come to India to settle there kids.

2 comments

I think you overestimate how much people are willing to live in shitty conditions in exchange for business opportunities. The US may not be a boomtown but it has opportunity to live a comfortable life if you can add value. Most people would prefer quality of life + "just getting somewhere" (the American standard) over living in a dump + business opportunities.
There no 'shitty conditions'. Not by what I perceive and experience.

People who opted to stay in India to reap the benefits of the IT boom in the 90's are in something like a million times better conditions than the guys who left to the US in the 90's.

If you want to be super rich, this is the time to be in India. And it will be at least for the next half century, there is too much room to grow and there is far little genuine competition.

Business opportunities, money, being rich is not what life is all about. Clean air, clean water, good work culture, honesty and respect for other human beings is what is missing in India. There is somebody in every corner looking to con you here in India. Conditions are very pathetic. Its a rat race in the cities, with every person trying to outrun the next guy. People are aware of the money they can make and are blinded by it. All they see and respond to nowadays is money.
> There no 'shitty conditions'.

Based on my 2 trips to India - Mumbai and Chennai - this is either naive or dishonest.

I'll go further, and say that out of all the roughly 50 countries I visited, which include Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Indonesia, Phillipines and Solomon Islands, conditions in India were The Shittiest. Sorry.

I think you are overestimating the demand for talent here. Recently Infosys announced that they are going to change the workforce ratio to 70% freshers and 30% seniors. There are very few companies which value true talent in India. You have to fight and pay bribe to get anything that has interaction with a government organisation. Broken or no roads, fly over and metro that are taking years together to complete. As far as I am aware only very few percentage of people became rich in the IT boom of 90s but most of the people who went abroad during that period are well to do today (this from random sample among my relatives and friends).
I will prefer to be "not so rich" in a country where majority is "not so rich" rather than be "super rich" in a country where majority is "super poor".
I've lived half my life as a kid in Bangalore and half in the US. All I can say is if you're willing to eat Chapati and Dal and never go out to "do" things while living in the San Francisco area, basically, if you live like an Indian, you won't have trouble "getting somewhere". It's not like rent is cheap in India, and getting your kid into a decent college is way harder.
Bangalore today is nothing like when you were a kid.

The amount of effort you would expend to take you to 'getting somewhere' in the US, will take you miles ahead in India these days.

As I said the demand is huge, genuine competition is no way existent.

Actually, I'm back in Bangalore now working for a startup. The work is interesting, but the pay is only $18,000 for the same product management role that netted me $60 grand just out of college in San Mateo. Sure, I face absolutely no competition, since there is very little product talent here. Doesn't mean I'm going places in terms of a lifestyle or financial security. If I live like a peasant compared to my life back in the states, I save less money. What's disheartening is that so many goods and experiences are hitting dollar prices in this city right now. (Meat, nice produce, beer, good clothes).