Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Executive in Residence at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.
I spent Columbus Day in Sunnyvale, fittingly, meeting with a roomful of new arrivals. Well, relatively new. They were Indians living in Silicon Valley. The event was organized by the Think India Foundation, a think-tank that seeks to solve problems which Indians face. When introducing the topic of skilled immigration, the discussion moderator, Sand Hill Group founder M.R. Rangaswami asked the obvious question. How many planned to return to India? I was shocked to see more than three-quarters of the audience raise their hands.
Even Rangaswami was taken back. He lived in a different Silicon Valley, from a time when Indians flocked to the U.S. and rapidly populated the programming (and later executive) ranks of the top software companies in California. But the generational difference between older Indians who have made it in the Valley and the younger group in the room was striking. The present reality is this. Large numbers of the Valley’s top young guns (and some older bulls, as well) are seeing opportunities in other countries and are returning home. It isn’t just the Indians. Ask any VC who does business in China, and they’ll tell you about the tens of thousands who have already returned to cities like Shanghai and Beijing. The VC’s are following the talent. And this is bringing a new vitality to R&D in China and India.
Why would such talented people voluntarily leave Silicon Valley, a place that remains the hottest hotbed of technology innovation on Earth? Or to leave other promising locales such as New York City, Boston and the Research Triangle area of North Carolina? My team of researchers at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley polled 1203 returnees to India and China during the second half of 2008 to find answers to exactly this question. What we found should concern even the most boisterous Silicon Valley boosters.
We learned that these workers returned in their prime: the average age of the Indian returnees was 30 and the Chinese was 33. They were really well educated: 51% of the Chinese held masters degrees and 41% had PhDs. Among Indians, 66% held a masters and 12% had PhDs. These degrees were mostly in management, technology, and science. Clearly these returnees are in the U.S. population’s educational top tier—precisely the kind of people who can make the greatest contribution to an economy’s innovation and growth. And it isn’t just new immigrants who are returning home, we learned. Some 27% of the Indians and 34% of the Chinese had permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens. That’s right—it’s not just about green cards.
What propelled them to return home? Some 84% of the Chinese and 69% of the Indians cited professional opportunities. And while they make less money in absolute terms at home, most said their salaries brought a “better quality of life” than what they had in the U.S. (There was also some reverse culture shock—complaints about congestion in India, say, and pollution in China.) When it came to social factors, 67% of the Chinese and 80% of the Indians cited better “family values” at home. Ability to care for aging parents was also cited, and this may be a hidden visa factor: it’s much harder to bring parents and other family members over to the U.S. than in the past. For the vast majority of returnees, a longing for family and friends was also a crucial element.
A return ticket home also put their career on steroids. About 10% of the Indians polled had held senior management jobs in the U.S. That number rose to 44% after they returned home. Among the Chinese, the number rose from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China.
When we asked what was better about the U.S. than home, 54% of Indian and 43% of Chinese said that total financial compensation for their previous U.S. positions was better than at home. Health-care benefits were also considered somewhat better in the United States by 51 percent of Chinese respondents, versus 21 percent who thought it was better in their home country. (Indian respondents were split more evenly on this).
These were a self-selected group, people who had already left. But what about the future, the immigrants presently studying at U.S. institutions of higher learning? We surveyed 1,224 foreign students from dozens of nations who are currently studying at U.S. universities or who graduated in 2008. The majority told us that they didn’t think that the U.S. was the best place for their professional careers and they planned to return home. Only 6 percent of Indian, 10 percent of Chinese, and 15 percent of European students planned to settle in the U.S.
Many students wanted to stay for a few years after graduation if given a choice—58% of Indians, 54% of Chinese, and 40% of Europeans. But they see the future being brighter back home. Only 7% of Chinese students, 9% of European students, and 25% of Indian students believe that the best days of the U.S. economy lie ahead. Conversely, 74% of Chinese students and 86% of Indian students believe that the best days for their home country’s economy lie ahead. National Science Foundation studies have shown that the “5 year stay rates” for Chinese and Indians science and engineering PhD’s have historically been around 92 % and 85% respectively (NSF tracks these 5 years at a time, and the vast majority stay permanently). So something has clearly changed.
For Silicon Valley, and for the U.S., this is the wrong kind of change. To some degree, these responses reflected the moribund U.S. economy and the rough job prospects facing students. With U.S. unemployment at 10%, who cares if we lose the next generation of geeks? There won’t be jobs for them for years, anyway, until the U.S. job market recovers. And sure, I know the xenophobes are going to cheer my findings. They believe that foreign workers take American jobs away.
But a growing body of evidence indicates that skilled foreign immigrants create jobs for Americans and boost our national competitiveness. More than 52% of Silicon Valley’s startups during the recent tech boom were started by foreign-born entrepreneurs. Foreign-national researchers have contributed to more than 25% of our global patents, developed some of our break-through technologies, and they helped make Silicon Valley the world’s leading tech center. Foreign-born workers comprise almost a quarter of all the U.S. science and engineering workforce and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. It is very possible that some of the smart Indians who sat in the room with me holding their hand up on Columbus Day will start the next Google or Apple. Many of them will build companies which employ thousands. But the jobs will be in Hyderbad or Pune, not Silicon Valley.
Good post.. please keep these international posts up Vivek, they are extremely thought provoking.
This post is really good, Vivek.
I first found about you on a blog post http://smartbab...ck-home-to.html
and I have been following your work ever since!
Good stuff.
There is one angle that is not covered here…In the 70s and 80s, Indians who moved to US were actually top-tier..
But today any Tom,Dick and Harry from anywhere can make it to the US..Screw all the policies making visas stricter..In many cases, if you are going for a job immediately after graduation, the more academically inclined make it to good companies here..
Those going to US are of two kinds – They either want to do an MS (The Indian masters in engineering sucks to a great extent) or they don’t have great jobs here..
And there is a third kind who form a huge chunk – They go to US merely to make enough money so they can fulfil family responsibilities like building a house quicker than they can from India..and once everything is done, if they have a son, they remain..and if they have a daughter, they rush back home… I’m not kidding.., it happens in most cases..
I was another kind: I was majoring in English from a good US University. I quit right at the beginning of my sophomore year and returned to India.
Today, I’m doing pretty good in Delhi University, studying English literature.
I would say that the stint in the US helped me a lot – it opened up my eyes to what all could be possible if you have the right ambition and drive. That’s something that no amount of education can buy.
But yes, the reverse brain drain is true, and I’m a living testimony of it. The “happiness quotient” back home is just too strong to give up for a foreign land.
I might return to the US (or some other country) again, but not to settle down.
There we hardly any Indians who moved to the U.S. in 70s and 80s. Very few. The flood began in 1998 when the visa caps were increased to the millions.
As someone who lived and worked in SV for 17 years, I can say that IT was 98% white American males until 1998. Now Indians and Chinese have taken over and we have….. economic collapse. What makes you people think you are good at IT when India has never created a single software product anyone uses? Why can’t you keep American IT companies going as promised?
The flood of Asian labor has been a total disaster for America’s economy. The only think more obvious than that is Asians are unable to realize they are the cause of the problem.
American needs to deport 99% of these people now. They are just here for our jobs and money, that’s all.
You are merely parroting what I’ve said in a more xenophobic sort of way…
Yes, since the late 90s (especially since the Y2K problem started), Indians moved to the US in heaps..that was exactly the time when the market (after ten years of liberalization) picked up steam in India..
So, while lots of smart people stayed back to work in India, the duds (no offence to the smarter people who’ve moved to US) went to the US..
But please, don’t blame the recession on Indians..A majority of Indians in USA are merely at the engineer level..the doom was brought forth by the strategy collapse of the upper management..and from the sub prime crisis for which you have your own greedy native American to blame..Most Indians in US don’t even own the right to buy a house there..
2 India articles in one week? You guys are spoiling me.
There would not be a need to deport if we didn’t let them in in the first place Chris. Seriously, what truly is the utility of bringing in an entry level associate engineer from India? The benefit to the Indian is obvious. The benefit to the US?
Hey Chris, our economy did not crash cuz of brown people. It crashed cuz of Wall Street. Would you like me to give you the demographics at Wall Street?
Grow a pair dude.
@anand, Chris is not blaming the US recessions on the massive wave of Indian workers. He is blaming US low productivity on this large group of immigrant workers. Their conniving work ethics and cultural idiosyncrasies negatively affect American productivity.
You, my friend, obviously know nothing about the real world.
Wow, is someone bitter they can’t compete in a free market?
Wow, if you’re the Adobe Engineer then all I can say is reap what you sow. Seeing as your corp is headed up by an Indian who presided over the disaster that is CS4. And who insists on paying 6x the peak revenue of a spyware company AND had to borrow.
I see layoffs and even moar outsourcing in your future.
Actually, I have a post from CL that pretty much epitomizes what the older Indians think of the ‘youngs’ and ‘fakes’.
http://mindtake...megs-on_07.html
Your CEO doesn’t hire, he just does the equivalent of buying even more mediocrity ala Costco: M&A.
Adobe used to mean quality. Now with the 2nd gen MBA after the founders its fate hinges on a browser plugin and a half assed metrics company that plays a distant second fiddle to Google.
Can we blame the Indian MBA for that? Or just MBAs in particular?
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter....drunk_economist
Your economy crashed because of the many white asses sitting ( all from IVY leagues ) at the top of US banks.
The US IT industry ( where indians are in large numbers ) is still ok compared to the banks. Indians have nothing to do with us recession, US companies like GM and Ford have been loosing to the Japanese for a long time.
US recession also happened because of too much credit being given to US households, lazy americans who splashed on credit cards, buying up cheap chinese goods and ( helping chinese ) building a huge trade deficit.
You are looking more and more like an irrational racist guy, with you illogical arguments.
Hope you see the truth.
Hey Chris, Indians account for~0.5% of the US population (2 million Indians). So by your definition, if 2 million Indians are responsible for the economic collapse…then we pretty much OWN you and your country so I’ll take that as a win for the Indians. Your comment might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve read on TechCrunch in my life to be honest, so I’m not even going to bother refuting it.
Chris:
Please retain the one’s who work to clean the toilets and the airports! When I visit the US I would like to see my Bro’s doin a good job at least there
“White asses”? No racism going on there.
Expose the Indians just a little and their angry racism comes right to the surface. Every time.
Can’t maintain the fake smiles and friendliness when someone tells the truth about Indians? We knew you were all fakers and frauds all along.
Indians account for 0.5% of the U.S. population? Before Indians were running around saying it was 5%.
But what is the % of Indians in the IT sector? It’s more like 90%. Since Silicon Valley is mostly Indians now, we can only assume you are responsible for destroying it.
Oh, and after that you went to Wall St. and Detroit and cleaned those out.
0.5% might sound like a small number but 4 million Indians is the size of 8 or 10 large armies. if they all collectively have the same intent – to clean out America and trash it and send the money home, that would be a pretty effective army.
We have been invaded America. Economic invasion and takeover. 4-6 million is not a small number in terms of conquest.
Please note that the first webmail was created by Sabeer Bhatia..We respect that he had a co-founder who was american. Sun had Vinod Khosla. I can enumerate hundreds of examples like that..So before u make a statement that Indians didnot create any good software product, please check back….We respect the cooperation from friends from all cultures be it be american, chinese or anyone else..
Chris/Bobo66/Mike Morose,
Well Apologies for calling them white asses.
Let me rephrase , Wall street collapse was caused a lot of IVY league fat asses, with fat pay checks, and predominantly non Asian. There is nothing Indian going in there. A bunch of greedy Americans who threw all fiscall management principles to the wind.
I dont agree there were no recessions before. What about the great 1930s depression, Indians have a hand there too?!. What about the gloom of the 1980s?. Just because you were not born then does not mean , these depressions did not happen. Of course i dont expect someone like to be well read, it requires some intelligence to read and understand history.
And what is this GM’s $ 3 billion going down the drain?. Well i will surely call you an intellectually challenged person ( based on your posts) , because that amount is the investment GM made in india, and is reaping benefits, in terms of profits. It is not an handout or a loan.
http://blog.god...-making-profit/
So are other foreign companies in India making tons of profits:
Hyundai India posts close to $ 1.1 billion revenues.
Maruti Suzuki, Indian subsidiary of Suzuki has revenues more than US $ 4 billion.
Well even here, it is the Japanese companies who are doing better than American auto companies in India, well market forces seem to like Japanese better than Americans.
Look, perhaps India and China can save GM, not USA in the future:
http://www.glob...-general-motors
And about the IQ part, i was referring to your IQ, not to any race’s IQ. Surely yours is below par, going by your posts.
As someone pointed out above Hotmail and Sun both had India co founders. Do you know Ram Shriram, who funded Google in its early days.
Well i will stop here, because, all this information might clog your tiny low IQ brain, and make it hard for you understand and digest. Have you visited the counsellor i talked about.?
- Krishna
Chris,
It was the most baseless and saddest comment that I wasted two minutesof my life reading and some 5 that I am replying now. Its not only xenophobia that you are expressing, but plain outright racism, cos you used ‘white’.
So I’d request all other readers to please not waste time giving importance to baseless idiotic comments like this so these kinds of unimportant people don’t have a voice.
I came to US because I wanted to study a good masters, did one, worked 2 years and got lot of awesome experience, but still the quality of my life was low when compared to 50% of that salary that I am getting now and living much better life. The life style is a factor why I came to India, and relations/familial connections too, and 3rd – I could afford to come back, and not be greedy enough to stay put..
Chris…. by the way did your mom not tell you that you should not miss your date with your shrink.
You seem to be spending too much time on this post trying to prove that you are stupid ! Pls… you don’t need to.
Apple is a great company ! We love its product ! Now i know why it makes great products … You have not been employed by them !!
@anand: the argument for your new angle is myopic at best. There were many Indians in 70s and 80s that went to US and setup motels and worked odd jobs at gas stations and cabbies.
Oh and many of your not-so-top-tier indians went to US due to the outsourcing of Y2K related work to Indian IT service industry..
So there was a huge market for the service industry and Indians filled that niche.
Funny, but I am an American and have lived all over the USA all my life. I think there was ONE Indian guy in my high school class. Not a single one in my college in late 80s and early 90s. I’ve been from NJ to L.A. to the midwest, to SF. Never saw a lot of Indians anywhere until late 90s – not even in motels and gas stations. So the argument they were here in the 70s and 80s just doesn’t computer. The flood began in late 90s – the exact same time the first economic collapse happened.
The U.S. econ did not collapse because of Wall St. Wall St. and banks collapsed because SPENDING Americans have been pushed out of the workforce and remittance-hungry Indians have moved in.
Take jobs away from mortgage-paying Americans and car-loan paying Americans and of course the economy is going to collapse. This is the end result of the cheap labor mania.
After Indians cleaned out SV in the late 90s they moved to Wall St. jobs. Sure enough, Wall St. collapsed. Lehman bought flawed trading software from Wipro (Spectramind) which caused massive losses due to bad logic. Another company gone.
GM was BOOMING with American workers until it outsourced to Wipro in 2006. 3 years later it went bankrupt.
Quark, once an American pwoerhouse software company almost died at the hands of Alukah Kamar before the board discovered his fraud and fired him.
ComAir’s 100% Indian IT department used a short int when they should have used a long int which caused the air crew scheduling software to fail nationwide on Christmas Day 2005 – stranding millions of holiday travelers at U.S. airports – all because some faking Indian “IT experts” didn’t learn basic CS in school (if they went to school at all, that is).
You cannot deny the trail of destroyed companies taken over by imported Indian workers. It’s undeniable. Funny but we had NO economic problems before you people started coming here.
Very good comment Chris. I appreciate that.
Chris P:”GM was BOOMING with American workers until it outsourced to Wipro in 2006. 3 years later it went bankrupt.”
You were hangin’ in there with your bitchy rants but this is just f#cking hilarious. You are blaming the extinction of a industrial dinosaur on its outsourcing contract of ~$50M, which started in 07. Keep on talking dude….
Is there a reason why you are probably single. Living in the Bay Area and having a “whites” only viewpoint must drive you crazy, at every corner there are “non-whites” and they seem to be getting laid much more than you. Maybe a mail-order “non-white” bride is what you need.
On a serious note, when is the next dungeons and dragons meetup… haha
@Chris P:”GM was BOOMING with American workers until it outsourced to Wipro in 2006. 3 years later it went bankrupt.”
Here, here. GM was going to take over the world but that ~$50M contract to Wipro killed the mighty company and of course 25 years of total incompetence combined with $4 a gallon gas and a credit crisis that killed GM’s core “all-american” buyer…
Chris,
I think you should think before you post , otherwise, the forum readers will never take you seriously, if you keep making low IQ and nonsense statements like this:
“GM’s contract with Wipro lead to GMs demise”.
GMs contract to Wipro was peanuts, it spends more on its office lawns than on Wipro.
Everyone, knows that GM has been on a slide last several years, thanks to hefty pay packages, unreasonable health care benefits given to its workers and the lack of innovation , for the last 20-30 years which allowed Japanese automakers *( read Toyota and Honda ) to gain marketshare.
It is very very clear you have an illogical and xenophobic aversion towards Indians, blaming everything on them, you probably should get some counselling.
Yes, i agree you might have seen mediocre Indian programmers in USA, so have i seen mediocre and average white American programmers in plenty.
I sometimes wonder if you are American at all, for i know most Americans to be very sensible. May be a pakistani in disguise.
Please go get a life.
- Krishna
It wasn’t $50 million. The Wipro contract was $300 million. And you forgot about the *$3 billion* the Indian Mafia made GM invest in India. $3 billion that promptly went right down the toilet as usual.
And you’re ignoring the 10-20 million American GM customers who can no longer buy GM products because they were thrown out of work in their own country when they got replaced by Indian invaders.
I am sure the loss of 10-20 million middle-class American consumers at the hands of India, Inc. also had nothing to do with GM’s downfall.
Low IQ? Average Indian IQ is 81. Average American IQ is 98.
No wonder the U.S. is such a mess. IQ81s did this to us.
Bobo=Chris Paduan: The contract was for 5 years at $300M, which got revised down for which Wipro had no say..*cough* GM bankruptcy.I would say no more than $50M has transpired between GM and Wipro.
GM was living it up with the Hummer when gas was below $1/gl in 1999. Toyota on the other hand introduced the 1st generation Prius in 2000s to mocking reviews… who is laughing now sucker.
>>the Indian Mafia made GM invest in India. $3 billion that promptly went right down the toilet as usual.
GM does quite well in India and Buicks are hot in China, you forgot to mention that those two countries greatly help GM and are its most lucrative markets.
>>And you’re ignoring the 10-20 million American GM customers who can no longer buy GM products because they were thrown out of work in their own country when they got replaced by Indian invaders.
LMAO.. really. No doubt with that logic I would say the Middle East is controlled by Indians who coerced the Arabs to raise oil prices by threating to stop working in their oil fields, which led to $4.50/gl gas in 2008, which led to the credit crisis and 10% unemployment. Those pesky Indians control everything and everybody.
Hey, seriously when is the next dungeons and dragons meetup.
Given so many typos, I believe Chris is not an American. He is somehow trying to CREATE hatred. Sure, there are some Americans who do not like losing jobs due to immigration policies. But, they all acknowledge the competency of Indians.
Anand,
Whether i like Chris or Americans or indians, I do have to admit that what you said is true. Indians going to US last 10 years are not the top tier lot, compared to those in the 70s and 80s, very true.
But then when numbers go up, quality goes down, it would be unreasonable to expect a few 100000 indians with 140+ IQ to land up in USA every year.
Having said this, i still find it ridiculous to think US recession was caused by Indians in the valley. Recessions always happened in the US, and some xenophobic morons always blame it on something outside, like Jews, or Nazis and in Chri’s case Indians.
I am not sure how a small army of 1 million workers can somehow drag the productivity down of an entire nation, even if a percentage of these Indian workers are not very bright. There are plenty of American programmers i know of that are dumb and lazy as well.
And I know many Indian H1 B programmers that are finding it hard to find jobs in USA , because they dont have a green card, and companies do not want to sponsor them. Fair enough, i guess Green card holders and American citizens have a right of way first.
But claiming that mediocre H1Bs are taking away jobs is funny to hear. Yes, if someone is very good in what he does and on H1B, he definitely is going to be hired by an US company over an average and lazy american programmer. And blaming recession on Indians, that is hilarious.
- Krishna
Faking ndian managers and bodyshop types that work for Premji, etc. are getting into American companies and making sure that they bring in as many Indians as they can. Skills are irrelevant. This is all about grabbing money and having prestige for Indians. I have seen this happen firsthand at companies like Adobe where Indian managers run around the halls with a notepad writing down the names of as many American workers as they can in order to lay them off later. Once laid off, they actually ask the Americans to come back to work for one week only to train their replacements. This is going on in companies all over America. The Indian managers lie and keep the incompetent Indian workers in the company long enough to clean the place out and then it dies (just take a look at Sun, Quark, PeopleSoft, etc).
So what is happening is the IT-inventing American workforce is being kept out of jobs by the very Indian workers we are importing. The Indians have so low skills they have to be trained by Americans and they still can’t do the jobs. As this economic plague of locusts continues, we sink deeper and deeper into depression. You cannot deny there were no economic problems in America before Indians arrived here. We know economic takeover when we see it.
CHRIS: I am not an AMERICAN and I have nothing extensive to say but all I felt going thru your posts is that as an outsider now trying to understand in further depth about the “causes” as specified by you for Recession , it seems eventually that you have opened up a new window to the world that the so called notion that “AMERICANS are best management guys” is totally wrong and the whole world shud realise that hiring Americans on top posts will lead to many wrong decisions and shut downs…..
Simple reason i am starting to think this way is because it is these American Managers who prompted Govt to open more Visas for Asians during their time of need because they had never been able to produce a breed of people capable enough to sort their own problems all through these years.
and of course with Capitalist economy … i think .. it is “ME” first …so These American Managers do not even have time to think about the welfare of their “own ” American people.
May god bless u and make u realise that if u are not competent enough to handle you home then rather it is better to be steered by the ones driving and be appreciative of them.
Your argument that Indian Masters’ degree sucks is wrong. As for jobs, in my class of M Tech in CS at Indian Institute of Science, all of 30 of us joined top tier companies and preferred not to go abroad and joined top-tier facilities in India like Bell-Labs, Yahoo! Labs,Microsoft IDC etc., The quality of education is improving. The attitudes of indians’ is changing..You can notice that in the number of startups that are coming up in India.
There are two kinds of people who try to talk cheap about people who migrate.
First kind: People looking at mark sheets and having ‘I am better than you’ attitude. They utterly lack inter personal skills and escalate every interaction to a competition. They use every interaction to show how great they are.
Second kind: People who can’t make it to US, and develop ’sour grapes’ attitude.
I wonder which kind is Mr. Anand Srinivasan?
The third – One who got an opportunity to go abroad to US but stayed back because he thought it was better to stay back to do an MBA inside India..and who has accompanied friends who wanted to get fake Microsoft certifications done to get jobs in US..
Sure, I purposefully omitted the third kind you mentioned. These people stay back, and would tell that they did a great service to India by staying back, at lease a million times in their life time.
Egotistic people like such, who use this parasitic value system to elevate themselves, don’t have any regard to human freedom and its ways.
Live and let live! You need an ounce of tolerance, not a ton of intelligence to live on this earth.
You are Chris are of same kind at a different voracity level, just arguing on different points.
_|_
Anand makes a very good point btw. Most of the Indians coming to the US now are NOT in the top tier. I have idiot friends who’ve managed to get into US Universities just because the American Univs are willing to take any dumbass student, as long as he pays the entire tuition fees.
As things stand, they don’t look too good for the United States. The smart people are moving out, the dumbasses are moving in. If I were an American, I would cry myself hoarse for stricter visa policies.
Just because couple of your dumb friends got admission does not mean all immigrants are dumb.
Your comments show how much you know about administration and your attitude.
If we judge you by your friends, we would be very hesitant to give you pass marks. Unless, you made dumb friends to elevate your self, which makes you an @ssh*le.
Once again, Wadhwa throws his jabs at Americans and calls us all xenophobes. Funny how you can’t, as an American, do business in China without a Chinese partner. Are you writing about that Vivek? Are your writing about the IP theft that the Chinese are so good at? Are you writing about the lack of drinkable water for half billion people in India? Nope, you’re not doing that.
All you manage to do is tell us how great the Indians and Chinese are, call Americans xenophobes – your last three posts did this, and tell us how we should open the flood gates of immigration and allow everyone in the world entry to the US. Did you ever think that the Chinese and Indians who are going home are patriots? They would rather build wealth in their own countries than do it in a place where everything they grew up with was no longer readily available. Foods, places of worship, language, and family support structures can be more important then the all mighty dollar. I guess you are missing out on the social factors that cause people to return home. But, you are the one constantly writing that Americans are xenophobes – funny thing is that you will face the same attitude if you are an American who moves to China or India.
Defensive, irrational rant.
Actually, I think he makes a good point. We shoudl not always look at it from a $$$ POV. Quality of Life has vastly improved in CN and IN in the last decade and now that the money is there it is very tempting to move back and be in a more friendly place.
As someone that spent time living in the Bay Area, I can tell you it it one of the dullest parochial places I have ever been to (pockets of SF excluded). As soon as people have a choice of moving out of the “land that fun forgot” I can see why they do it.
Agree with Tinus to an extent…Vivek needs to write on more diverse topics than sticking to this Indian&Chinese against the American Xenophobe thing..
If in the era of stricter Visas, Indians are returning, then they would do so even if the floodgates were open..Opening the floodgates only gets the more dumber Indians into USl while the more intelligent ones return home…You guys want that?
@Anand Srinivasan
I hope you realize and change your ‘I am better than thou’ attitude, though I doubt it.
Show some respect, for without it your intelligence, proven by higher grade point, is of no use for human existence.
Even in 90’s more than 95% of IIT students were aiming for US soil. Very few were staying in India by choice.
Migration patters depend not only on how better you fared in college.
As a smart ass you should realize that.
LOL.. Guess it’s starting to hurt somewhere..Let me make it clear..I’m not saying all intelligent Indians stay back or all dumb Indians go to US..
A lot majority of my friends are now in US, and I can say quite a lot of them are smart..way smarter than I am…
But that is not condone the fact that a huge chunk of people making way to US also get fake certifications done, don’t get good jobs here and the like..
@Anand Srinivasan
oooohhhh… what can I do without your approval of my intelligence.
Actually it’s not. These are facts and if you don’t mind spending a few minutes you could look them up yourself. Just because you disagree with the poster doesn’t mean he’s either irrational or defensive. However, you might want to take a moment to consider that you’re freedom to post your disagreement is a uniquely democratic privilege.
The author isn’t calling all Americans xenophobes nor does he call for opening the Immigration floodgates. He’s making a critical point that this used to be a country that attracted the brightest minds in the world, now we seem to be a country that helps educate the brightest minds, and through dumb policy, find good ways to make it an rosier decision for these innovators and job creators to leave. Should we just throw up our hands and say ‘oh well, we have enough homegrown talent to keep the US competitive for the next couple of decades’? That wold be dumb and great that someone is doing the research and putting it out there for us. Question is are we going to do anything about it.
When someone exposes Indian IT incompetence, Indians come back with a few standard replies:
- Xenophobia.
- You’re a ranter, troll, irrational.
- White Americans are all fat, stupid, lazy pigs who can’t do anything (no racism going on there).
Never do you see the Indians actually address the facts presented and refute them.
Very well thought point Tinus. Immigrants from all countries usually tend to be extremely educated and want to bring what they have learned back to their homeland at some point in their life, whether its when their 30 yrs old or later on in life.
I completely agree with you! but there are hard working smart people all around the world and there are dumm people being that said i don’t understand why many comments over here have no respect for the people that come to this country!
Dumm people like those who don’t know how to spell DUMB properly? Americans have no respect for you because you create economic collapse and disaster everywhere you go and because you do not have the skills or talent claimed. If you did, India would have surpassed the U.S. by now or else the U.S. economy would be booming.
3rd world welfare is killing the U.S.
oh my, he wrote “dumm” instead of “dumb” … you should deport him ASAP !
Well Chris … i can fluently speak 5 languages … probably Harsh can also speak more than one … and how languages can you speak ? One, maybe two … and that’s it ? … Come on … cut him some slack … if you speak a lot of languages fluently you can make a spelling error from time to time.
he he he. I am sorry but I have to laugh. Like children, some of the commentators are.
While yes, it is far easier to point the finger at other countries. “3rd world welfare is killing the US”?
Thats a good one. You still think the US has such influence in the world? You still rule? You need to wake up.
The problem the US is facing today roots from your never ending greed. You have put a price tag on human life and crush anyone who oppose your system.
I found Indians and Chiniese far better to do business with then the US. Sure, I might not make as “much” as I could in the US, but I am dealing with people who have common sense, respect and skills.
Unfortunately the day Americans wake up and realize they are no longer in power, they will blame the world for taken it from them, not realizing they did it to them selves.
“If there is an exception to a rule, then it is not a rule”
There’s nothing wrong with Americans finally waking up and behaving the way the rest of the world behaves towards foreigners.
Gwailao. Puying. Gringo. Gaijin. Am I missing any?
So if Vivek wants to spout this thin skinned narrative then go right ahead. It’s about as credible as Steve Ballmer telling us he’ll move *the rest* of Microsoft to India. Actually, India can have $MSFT. Or maybe it’s the other way around?
This isn’t a brain drain, because these folks were going to go home anyway. And this article is just a slap in the face because it’s just stating an obvious trend as some type of alarm as if it can be changed or reversed. If you go abroad you ALWAYS end up heading home. Where’s your family, Vivek? Unless your name is Bobby Jindal it’s probably back there.
All this aside, you really can’t blame Indians and Chinese for wanting to better their lives. Or for flooding the US materially or virtually [offshore] with their dregs. They wouldn’t be the first country to do so, nor the last. And like the rest of the world, the US birthrate is falling. So SOME of these folks are needed. However-
You CAN blame the US baby boomers who were managers in the early 2000s, stubbornly clinging to their jobs, and who offshored and outsourced all of our US local tech jobs and DID NOT exercise due diligence when hiring assets offshore that cost 1/5 what a local in the US does.
You wanna know why Windows sucks so much?
Why http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/ is updated DAILY?
And why companies would rather lazily pare down some weaker company’s staff than hire youngs? Or open offices ‘offshore’? That steal our tech via government mandate? *cough* China *cough*
Greed. The US baby boomers. You wanted to change the world, eh? Well here it is! You flooded tech with yobs who should have stayed at Frys with fake degrees, and LEFT THEM in positions because they were so cheap.
Consumers aren’t fools. You made garbage, now no one wants to pay for it, or pie in the sky recycled crap like ‘cloud computing’ [the old dumb term / network computer crapola that didnt work in the 90s and won't work now]. Michael Dell whines that netbooks are killing his bottom line but that’s what the real ‘cloud computer’ is. Oh, and it has enough storage to retain data, so who needs a cloud datacenter in India?
The only companies that are showing any growth are Apple and Google. They exude quality and retain local staff. In all their geos and it SHOWS.
The USA has set itself up for a ‘lost decade’ ala Japan, and it’s not going to end until the boomers move aside and let the youngs rebuild the LOCAL labor pool, including tech. These local youngs haven’t moved up any management track…there are only Boomers, who will probably be managing corps in between diaper changes and power lunches with their AARP friends.
Until local youngs are hired and we go back to the way it was and *is* in every other country, where youngs ‘intern’ or ‘journeyman’ and then move to being folks that can mentor & later retire realistically while the fresh crop brings in new ideas that are refined by their older peers, there will be no new ideas nor refinement. Just the same old Boomer crap that’s been the past 10 years. This basically started under Bush and continues under BlackBush. Sorry, Pres Obama, you’re no Clinton.
If *I* were a foreigner, this would look like a freakshow to me. All I need is an excuse like the weak dollar to head home.
In fact, in any *other* country we’d end up like Argentina or the Weimar Republic. Maybe the Chinese and Indians are just seeing the writing on the wall.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter....drunk_economist
Hear hear. Like a breath of fresh air in this thread.
Indians don’t care about Chinese and the feeling is mutual. Why would an Indian promote anyone outside their race? Heck, they can’t even get along with their neighbors the Pakistanis.
Of course NEITHER of those two even know how to wage war, otherwise this would have been a non issue a couple hundred years ago:
http://exiledon...-faggy-for-war/
Can’t say that about the Chinese. Evidently things are heating up on the India Chinese border:
http://english....4915162316.html
As you can see even here, Indians are all talk. Chinese are another matter.
Might be time to break out the popcorn…
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter....drunk_economist
Much like you people can’t clean up your war in the Middle East? And got your asses whooped by a tiny Asian nation 40 year back?
Incompetent people (in any country) deserve to get their jobs outsourced. Nobody owes you a living.
America never won Vietnam because we weren’t there for war. It was a drug-running op – if you win you have to go home. If you want to run drugs, you have to stay there.
Besides, that was 40 years ago before hightech weapons.
Who kicked India’s sorry keystone cops act on 26/11 in Mumbai?
You can hardly call Americans who created a $1 trillion industry “incompetent”. I guess Indian losers running PeopleSoft, Sun, Microsoft, Lehman, AIG, and Quark are more competent than Americans who built the IT industry long before India ever saw a keyboard.
@tinus Irrational.
To claim that Indian and Chinese immigrants are “patriots” and would rather build companies at home is stupid.
How many people start companies for patriotic reasons? They start companies to enrich themselves, not their country. The article mentions that a large portion of the companies started in Silicon Valley were setup by foreign born entrepreneurs.
How about Google? Sergey Brin doesn’t sound like very WASP
That’s where you’re wrong. Hyernationalism is rampant in China and India. In China, the CCP still controls everything despite what you’ve heard. All Chinese under the age of 40 are super-patriots. They want to get rich but they also want to build China’s prestige – they are indoctrinated with that in school.
So, they come to America to get on-the-job training and steal our tech. Their sole goal is to go home later and use what they have learned here to jumpstart Chinese industry. If that isn’t patriotic, I don’t know what is.
Xenophobes? There are LAWS on the books making it illegal to hire white people in India.
If you are American, go to your local Indian consulate and tell them you want a work visa to India and see what they say.
Interesting post, but what sort of policies could really stop such a “reverse drain”? It doesn’t seem that something is wrong in the Valley; it is just that India and China are developing rapidly and becoming better places to live.
Well said….
agreed however I believe the author’s position would be “let’s be as smart & competitive as possible about US immigration policy”.
not sure we need a “reverse brain drain” as mentioned above to motivate us to change, but it’s just one of many reasons to promote immigration reform.
see http://StartupVisa.com for more…
dave: cool idea on the startup visas. It seems tricky though to require seed investing — if the person can’t get a visa to come into the US in the first place.
Have you considered modifying OPT laws to allow startup founding? I’d imagine that potential entrepreneurs just finishing school here on a student visa (and thus have lived and experienced US culture for at least ) have the best chance at successful execution.
Contemporary US society is not interested in being competitive. The focus is “diversity”, “multiculturalism” and “saving the earth”.
For a capable person, it’s a good time to start looking at other options, like Jim Rogers, who emigrated to Singapore.
The Bay Area remains extremely competitive and remains an excellent place for tech-inclined people to be.
Moving to another country is fraught with its own risks. It will take years to adapt to the language and culture — and even then you may encounter xenophobic government regulation, racism, etc.
In Japan they love Americans, Brits, and Aussies, but they won’t dream of letting in hordes of Indians, Chinese, and Bangladeshis. They know not all cultures are equal and that if people cannot make their own country work, there is no reason to think they can sustain a developed nation.
BTW, did I mention that Japan began deporting all foreign workers except English teachers when the crisis hit? What a concept. Maybe America should think of doing the same so its own citizens can stay employed.
Japanese love may have increased for the Americans after they were nuked.
Nothing’s wrong is the valley? Massive job loss, state going bankrupt, no jobs.
India and China are growing precisely because we have trained their workers here in how to be our competitors.
Guest worker programs benefit other countries who need our knowhow. They don’t benefit USA as our economy now proves.
In this era, “on-the-job” training is pretty much useless in the software engineering world.
I’ve seen people who had worked in the software industry for XX years, but they can’t think “outside-the-box” that they had been trained from wherever they are trained.
There are lots of open source projects and developer community, online magazines, books, etc.
All you need is internet access and a decent computer to access it.
India or China do not need to be US competitor, they’d rather serve their own market.
I would like to see Microsoft, Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC, etc. all over the world outside US to be closed down.
But, I still respect Google and Apple.
Or the jobs will move to Vancouver or Toronto.
While the focus is on the US, it would be interesting to see comparative metrics for other countries besides the US (Canada, UK, etc.) where South-Asian and Chinese tech immigrants flock to.
Indian tech workers are so destructive that Japan won’t even let them in. Japan just deported all of its foreign workers to make sure that its native population had jobs. Then Singh had to go meet with the Japanese government and beg them to open up so that Indians could have jobs.
If Indian and Chinese IT workers are so smart then why is there no Indian or Chinese OS?
Name on software product (that works) from India or China that anyone uses.
“Name on” … or did you mean “Name one” ?
Red Flag Linux:
http://en.wikip.../Red_Flag_Linux
Even the Chinese know not to trust Windows. Was that the answer that you were looking for?
I have to hand it to the Chinese. They’re aggressive and inventive. Can’t say that much about the newer crop of Indians.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter....drunk_economist
No one except the CCP uses Red Flag Linux.
Name anyone in the USA, Europe, or Japan who uses it.
And please answer my original question about which new products and industries the Chinese invented.
You do realize that American software has tons of Indian and Chinese programmers working on it right?
And that’s exactly his point. All the top brains stayed in the US to work on US tech.
Which American software would that be? Vista? Yeah, good luck with that.
Certainly not on Apple’s software – at least not many of them. Apple’s software is mostly created by American staff. Did I mention Apple’s stock is now almost 8 times that of Microsoft.
“Working on something” does not necessarily means the product is any good.
Thousands of Indians “work” on software at Sun. Sun’s losing $150 million a quarter (most American programmers were driven out in 2001).
name the actual accomplishments – not some vague claims of “working on”.
And what is you’re trying to tell? That Apple is Americans at best? That Microsoft is not patriot enough for you? And so then Ballmer should get rid their Indians employees to create a better Windows?
Really, you’re sounds so ridiculous, I’m almost think that you’re fifth grader.
Oh yeah, by the way, Steve Jobs is half Syria, Sina Tamaddon (SVP for Application) is Iranian born, and Avie Tevanian (Apple’s former SVP for Software Engineering), the man who was responsible for setting company-wide software technology direction at Apple, is Armenian descents.
Ok, you maybe want to throw your iPod right now.
Dude, what about Sun having been actually co-founded by an Indian: Vinod Khosla
The way you keep using “white” implies to me that you not only want to deport the Indians and the Chinese but also all non-whites, including maybe the President Obama also, since he is not white.
Steve Jobs was born in America. He’s American. Descent has nothing to do with it. Jobs canned Tevanian over the debacle that is OS X’s VM system. He went to work for MS. Guess that didn’t work out too well based on MS’s stock price.
Apple is America’s last great corporation. Nearly all Apple software is written by Americans. All the other companies that are replacing their American workers with Indians are dying.
BTW, iPod was an Americans’ idea: Tony Fadell invented it (he’s now VP of the iPod division).
Did I mention that Visa is crap no one wants and iPod is a runaway success?
Sorry, but you can’t argue with reality.
Indians destroy companies.
http://www.busi...e_sales_up.html
Apple once again trounced the expectations of analysts in reporting results for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 26. The company reported revenues that grew 25% over the same quarter a year ago and profits that grew 46%.
Apple reported revenue of $9.87 billion, and a profit of $1.67 billion or $1.82 per share.
I am not sure, if i consider having a native OS is a sign of superior intelligence. Germany, UK, SPain, France , none of these have their own OS, so they are all dumb as well!.
Windows was made by Microsoft at the right time and due to the right market forces and Bill positioning his product at the right time and Windows caught on.
May be if you wait for long enough, you might eventually find a native OS from Asia. Remember the chinese are pushing for their own movie storage format like the blue ray.
- Krishna
Good post Vivek.
Current development pace in India is fantastic and also the living standards are getting higher. Also every MNC has one of their R&D located in India and China due to the high availability of brains at lower costs and also further reducing cost of accommodation in US.
Birth of the next Apple or Google will not be possible in India till adequate finances are available.
Birth of the next Apple or Google in India is not possible until one of you has an original idea…
Why isn’t it possible. Yes adequate finances is a problem, But original idea? It doesn’t matter if it’s done before, but whether you can do it better.
Look at what facebook did, they took myspace and turned it upside down, and created a site which beats it ten-fold!
Actually, the PP is right. Innovation and entrepreneurism wise, America will continue to kick India’s ass for a long time to come. Not only is the US a global brand with a strong ingrained entrepreneurship culture, it also attracts the best minds from ALL over the world. And just look at their universities. MIT, Stanford, Harvard. None of our impoverished universities that churn out near illiterates even come close. And yes, that includes the IITs too.
Agree with you vnt. As an American, who has spent years in China, I believe Americans put too much stock in innovation for innovation’s sake, and tend to forget that coming up with an idea and slapping a patent on it isn’t a worldwide success measure.
I think the American strength in innovation is a great thing, but it is only part of the equation. Hard work, determination, and adapting innovation to a demanding audience is what is key to being successful in China, not innovation on its own (especially web based “innovation”).
Hey, the Japanese copied American cars for years. In fact, they copied them so often that they eventually learnt to improve them manifold. Japan is the auto hub of the world today, not by being innovative, but by improving radically what already existed.
India can never create the next Apple. Apple is far too advanced for a country like India. Maybe in 100 years or so – if India cleans up its act.
Remember that you said this on October 17th, 2009. Hope to see you again on TechCrunch in 2025..and that’s not 100 years later
I seriously don’t get this ‘India cant create the next Apple’ thing…
Firstly, for all the hype around India being a tech superpower and stuff, facts remains that the educated engineer population is still a fraction of the Indian population. Most of the technology is consumed by the West..
Indian entrepreneurs create things for the Indian people..If you say, we don’t have an Apple yet, agreed..But if you say we don;t have entrepreneurs who’ve made it big..You’re wrong by miles..
Bharti Airtel, Reliance, a majority of the IT services cos., DFL are all companies created in the past 40 years or so and they lead the pack in their industry…These companies create value for the Indian consumer – something a majority of Americans might not be aware of..
And if you’re still hell-bent upon tech.., some promising startups like Zoho,Slideshare are all from India..maybe one of them can grow big someday..
Great article!
However, this reverse-exodus is not a zero-sum game. Indians and Chinese educated in the USA will most likely keep contacts there and surely the Universities will have their data. It’s better for a US-based company to know people in India and China when doing business in those countries and if they are the big growth markets, who better than an English-speaking link to lend a hand to American companies?
Finally, the battle for job allocation is fought on many grounds: salary, taxes, closeness to headquarters and to market. If an American company does business in India, it will have to hire a greater number of India-based people and vice-versa. To say that the jobs from the next Indian Apple or Google will go abroad is an oversimplification.
How does training a FOREIGN workforce help America? The fact is, with or without visas, these people will return home. They come here because of the exchange rate and the jobs. After 6 years they make their $ and go home. We need to start educating our OWN kids in our won schools instead of training the rest of the world. And we need to make sure our OWN kids get U.S. jobs so that the skills and experience stay here in America, not go home. Either way, it’s not a good idea to help a foreign workforce instead of helping your own. End guest worker programs now, send all the foreign students home and give those slots to American kids.
Chris, dude have you ever heard of the free trade? Your country is its biggest champion. If you guys go ahead and “find a way to give US jobs to Americans”, the rest of the world will “find a way to kick McDonalds and Pizza Hut” out of their country.
Fucktard, this world moves on globalization. Half your companies would collapse within a month if all their overseas revenues were to stop suddenly. Before making dumb redneck comments like above, first think that of the $1 Billion in Box Office revenues made by The Dark Knight, $500 million came from overseas markets.
Give American jobs to only Americans, and your entire economy will collapse as every country bands together to kick out your conglomerate.
Fuckin retard..
Free trade only applies to America. Wal-Mart was BANNED in India to protect local retailers and India puts 150% tariffs on U.S. autos and parts imported to India. There are no guest worker visa programs for Americans to go work in India.
Free trade? Doesn’t exist outside America and UK.
Go ask Japan if they believe in free trade and see what they say.
America’s economy is only 25% exports. We are still 75% internal. Funny how we were BOOMING before globalization started a mere 10 years ago. America doesn’t need world trade but the world needs to trade with America. No one in America believes the “globalization” lies anymore. We are sending you packing and that’s the end of the story. Enjoy your flights home.
Why didn’t we collapse in 1998 before you started arriving here?
American jobs BY LAW have to go to Americans. Title 8, Section 1182 – INADMISSIBLE ALIENS. Go read it. You are ALL illegal aliens because you are all adversely affecting the wages and working conditions of American workers.
I know Indians have a hard time understanding the concept of laws, but this is our country and you are GUESTS here. And now it is time for the guests to leave.
The economy has ALREADY collapsed – haven’t you been reading the news lately?
You can’t kick out our conglomerates. Your products don’t work. Are you going to run your computers on an OS made in India? If you kick out our conglomerates, we’ll slam the immigration doors and all Indians will go back to be unemployed like you were before you started getting the free job handouts from the U.S.
Chris could really replace ‘America’ with Germany and ‘Indians and Chinese’ with ‘the Jews’ in his posts.
Chris, you shure are funny
“Free trade? Doesn’t exist outside America and UK.”
And what about EU ?
Free trade applies only to the US and the UK??? Ever heard about the NAFTA and how it killed the Mexican industry?
Also, if you’re gonna make sweeping comments about the IQ levels of Indian/Chinese vs. Americans (and it’s pretty clear you mean *white* Americans), get this… in one of the toughest courses I took at Purdue, it was the Indians who took the top five places (to my own surprise). And there were enough native-born Americans they were competing against .
That said though, I think it’s time to move beyond petty racial outlooks. Let’s focus on doing stuff well.
NAFTA killed Mexican industry because American products are superior to Mexican products. Name one Mexican product anyone uses.
Any cars from Mexico? How about computers? How about a Mexican OS.
And don’t give me that “food” crap.
@Chris
You seem to be a selective reader of news.
When you read stories about economic collapse, do you skip words that say ‘great depression’ ? Do you skip when it happened? Or is it your pathetic math skills that can’t figure out 1930 happened before 1998?
Atleast Indians came with a visa. your ancestors came in the pretext of trade and colonized India for 300 years virtually stripping all the wealth from here. Keep Ranting chris.
Using that kind of language tells more about yourself than anyone else!
I was hoping to read this without any “hate speach”.
Hate speech? If you are concerned about hate speech then why aren’t you concerned about former NASSCOM head Karin Karnik who said “Indian engineers are better than the best American engineers”. No Nazism going on there, right? This despite the fact that the Dehli Metro project fell down and then cranes fell on top of it when they tried to remove the rubble.
Of how about HCL’s CEO saying “American grads are unemployable”. No hate speech there, right?
When India, Inc. stops bad-mouthing the greatest workers in the world and stops its hate speech, then I’ll consider stopping mine. Until then, all’s fair in love and war…..
How many indians/chinese take away “american” jobs every year? How many “american” jobs are lost every year because of “american” companies moving out to china and other places where they pay may be 1/50 or 1/100 of what they have to pay “americans”in america? any comments on this?
1/50? 1/100? Maybe people will comment when you know what you are talking about.
Yeah, you’re right. It’s probably more like 1/15,000
But, yeah, it’s more the ruthless exploitation/slave jobs that American companies are using India and China for that are a problem. This is the real evil of globalization and it’s entirely the fault of large corporations, ostensibly American.
There’s a lot of good points from all around here, even the most liberal to the not-so-cool Paduan.
Slavers of the 3rd World:
http://www.yout...feature=related
America has LOST 14 million white collar jobs since the invasion began in 1998. Only 1 million of those jobs or so went to India. That tells me the imported workers coming here aren’t creating any jobs, but rather destroying them. How can we expect workers ranked 59th in world productivity to help America when the American workers being kept out of the job market are ranked #1. No wonder America is dying – we’re converting our economy into a 3rd world.
stats source? You made it up right?
Remove all Indians from all American companies tomorrow and see what happens the next day!!! Bottom line – Americans are good speakers and make good Managers, Indians are technically more proficient than Americans and makes them good Engineers…. (I am not talking about all population, but the majority)
Chris, the workers coming here aren’t destroying jobs. Your US Hippy manager who continues to retain talent from the 3rd world either via VISA or offshore is what is destroying jobs.
Guns don’t kill people. Other people with guns kill people.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter....drunk_economist
In many ways USA is ALREADY the world’s biggest 3rd world country
I completely agree with all your posts, and you are absolutely right that there is no Indian OS and all Indian’s incapability in tech is completely understandable. But could you please elaborate on the fact that why American companies and Universities chose Indians/Chinese over Americans if Americans are so much better (which I believe is the reason you shouting give jobs back and slots back to Americans).
Thanks
VK
That’s odd. If you think it’s all corporate America’s fault, you’re wrong. I suggest you investigate US-INDOPAC or ow NASSCOM hired D.C. PR firm Hill & Knowlton to pump “worker shortages” stories into U.S. media in order to get the visa caps raise in 1998 and 2000. Or how they PAID H&K to lobby congress for the increases, or gave illegal foreign campaign contributions to our congresspeople. Try doing some research – India, Inc.’s lobby is behind this.
No, I didn’t make them up. Facts:
- According to a 2007 ILO/UN report American workers are ranked #1 in productivity, Indians are ranked 59th.
- According to CIA World Fact Book, U.S. GDP is 14 times that of India.
- Name one new industry or invention to come out of India in 500 years.
- Every company you allegedly brilliant Indian workers work at dies. Sun, PeopleSoft, Quark, now Microsoft, GM, Lehman, AIG, Boeing. You people keep claiming be the best at engineering, but where’s the proof.
- Indian engineers are the worst in the world. Dehli’s new Metro project just collapsed and the cranes used to remove the rubble collapsed on top of it.
- There is no OS made in India. Why not?
- Vista, which had a lot of work shipped to India is a disaster. Microsoft is dying.
- There has been no real innovation in SV for 10 years – the same time period Indians have taken it over. Why?
- Apple is booming and Apple hires mostly American IT workers. Why?
- CA has the highest % of foreign-born workers and the CA is in the worst shape of any state economy in the U.S.
- The U.S. was booming in 1998 when Americans were running Silicon Valley. Now that “brilliant Indians” have taken over, the U.S. is in the worst economic recession in 70 years. Why didn’t Indian IT workers perform as promised and keep the U.S. economy going like you said you would?
- Name one major desktop software application anyone uses that was written in India.
Sorry, but your CLAIMS of being brilliant engineers doesn’t quite match up with reality. You WANT people to believe you are, but the facts are facts. You can’t deny all of the above it true.
And statistics all over the news have been cited about the 14 million white collar jobs that have been lost in America since the visa caps were raised into the 100,000’s of thousands in 1998. Every news outlet including CNN has reported it.
No, I’m not making it up. Just because Indians operate by hype and deception doesn’t mean Americans do too.
“- According to a 2007 ILO/UN report American workers are ranked #1 in productivity, Indians are ranked 59th.”
I doubt it was workers vs. workers..The Indian productivity is definitely down because of lesser technology and older machinery..That’s true with any developing country…
“- According to CIA World Fact Book, U.S. GDP is 14 times that of India.”
So? I never claimed that India is some sort of superpower…
“- Name one new industry or invention to come out of India in 500 years.”
Tata, Reliance, Future Group, Birla to name a few..These companies are serving one billion of mankind as compared to some 50 million that Apple serves…
“- Every company you allegedly brilliant Indian workers work at dies. Sun, PeopleSoft, Quark, now Microsoft, GM, Lehman, AIG, Boeing. You people keep claiming be the best at engineering, but where’s the proof.”
These companies you mentioned badly need Indians at the management..In a globalized economy it is a crime to hire Indians and others at the lower level and keep the top positions in the hands of Americans alone..
Wait, Microsoft is dying? How many Indians are in Boeing? Are you doped?
“- Indian engineers are the worst in the world. Dehli’s new Metro project just collapsed and the cranes used to remove the rubble collapsed on top of it.”
Yea, infrastructure is bad, and we are still a developing economy..If a Katrina can wash off a state of the most developed country in the world, expect these things to happen in smaller economies..
“- There is no OS made in India. Why not?”
We don’t need one..Our companies develop products that Indians need – like I mentioned already, Tata Nano, Big Bazaar are the kind of innovations that Indians need. The Indian entrepreneur does not need to work for Techcrunch coverage..
“- Vista, which had a lot of work shipped to India is a disaster. Microsoft is dying.”
Yea…random shot..bad one..
“- There has been no real innovation in SV for 10 years – the same time period Indians have taken it over. Why?”
Because Google and the likes had moved most of its innovation to India…
“- Apple is booming and Apple hires mostly American IT workers. Why?”
Nobody from here gives a damn about Apple, except for that one motivational speech by Steve Jobs..
“- CA has the highest % of foreign-born workers and the CA is in the worst shape of any state economy in the U.S.”
LOL..Alrite, move back to Italy then..
“- The U.S. was booming in 1998 when Americans were running Silicon Valley. Now that “brilliant Indians” have taken over, the U.S. is in the worst economic recession in 70 years. Why didn’t Indian IT workers perform as promised and keep the U.S. economy going like you said you would?”
Our graduates should have been given the management level positions..not entry levels…If you can proudly talk bullshit, why can’t I?
“- Name one major desktop software application anyone uses that was written in India.”
Already answered..Indian entrepreneurs can only work for Indians and software development is not a sustainable market..
Why do Americans prefer Indians and Chinese over Americans?
Answer: cheap, cheap, cheap. Corporate executives are stupid enough to think that they can “transfer” talent from Americans to cheap imported slaves and have them do the same work. Of course American corporate idiot managers don’t understand software.
Apparently the scheme hasn’t been working too well based on the current sorry state of the economy wrecked at the hands of Chindia, Inc.
I said industry, not company. Name a new INDUSTRY India has invented and given to the world, the way Americans invented IT and gave it to India.
Tata, etc are just fraud companies that are really organized crime rackets. They talk big and go around cleaning out western companies and collapsing them, but where are their inventions of products? “Serving 1 billion”? You mean taking from 1 billion. Indian “serving” means deception, fraud, and ripping companies off. You are serving only yourselves.
India is no superpower? That’s all we’ve been hearing from Indians for the past 10 years. Now you’re denying it?
Quark HAD an Indian CEO (Alukah Kamar) who almost killed the company until the board fired him. Indians just want cushy management jobs long enough to rip off companies before they die.
I never said Indians are in Boeing. What I said was the INDIAN-MADE HCL software that Boing is using in the 787 is a FALURE and part of why the Dreamliner is a disaster.
India is a developing country? Then how can you have the best engineers in the world. You are comparing a man-made structure collapse in India (and cranes on top of it) to a NATURAL DISASTER? I’ve heard some Indians stretch things in the past, but no one would believe that argument.
Wait…. Indians only develop products for India? A minute ago you just said India is serving one billion. Microsoft employs 30,000 guest workers working on MICROSOFT software. You’re serving MS’s markets, not India. And you doing a lousy job of both.
Google and Apple both employ mostly local people with a FEW guest workers here and there. Apple CLOSED their R&D in India in 2006.
The whole world is lusting after Apple’s products – even in this recession. No one wants junk software made by MS. No one cares about Apple. A 600% growth rate and stock 5 times MS’s says you’re dead wrong.
Indians are all over management. Sun, MS, Adobe, and now you’re saying the companies were failing because Indians weren’t in management? They’re failing WITH Indians in management. You seem to contradict yourself in every sentance.
Software development is not a sustainable market? What do you call a $1 trillion dollar market that is 1/14 of the entire U.S. economy. What you meant was “sottware development is not a sustainable market with Indians running it. Grifting out companies’ money under the guise of ’services’ is”.
Okay, I have a question:
So what’s the preferred situation for everyone ?
Immigrants keep on helping the US economy or Immigrants going back to their home, contributing to the growth of economy in their own countries ?
In my case, I’d rather detach myself from country attachments. I want to work and cooperate with people who have similar mindsets and goals.
Regardless, of where it’s.
Then location does not really matter does it. If you can do the job at home do you really need to move.
It doesn’t matter actually.
But, job-at-home is not for most employees or employers. Some companies are not allowing their employees to do that.
There are also problems with cooperating with your hired people or partners through the internet or long distance.
This might work in the culture of internet communication in the US, but it might not work in other countries.
Again, it’s a problem of looking for the right people in the right location.
For a self-employed, independent, or freelancer working alone, that’s possible.
Immigrants are obviously not helping the U.S. economy. The largest immigration wave in 100 years has caused an economic collapse.
Let them go home and “help” their own countries. Without on-the-job training received in America, they can’t do anything for their home countries.
@Chris Paduan – Chris, should you not be teaching your kids (or your neighbor American kids) than ranting against immigrants. I bet you are one of those people who took part in the tea-parties…
No, I am one of those American workers who took part in building Silicon Valley and then watched a bunch of faking frauds from India throw us all out and then collapse the CA economy.
Why is CA going bankrupt? Were are the jobs and economic boom these workers promised to create?
Took part in building Silicon Valley? Really?
Be interesting to get your definition of ‘American’. Some potato farmer came over on a boat a hundred years back? Or some other European who scraped together the money for a plane ticket 40 years ago?
Don’t flatter yourself. Odds are you graduated from a B-grade CS school, wrote crap code in VB, and considered yourself a ‘programmer’.
The average American is terrible at Math and Science. Seeing people taking out calculators at grocery stores to figure out the change is laughable.
The small percentage of truly innovative and brilliant Americans create jobs for the rest of the population. Don’t take credit for riding on their coat-tails.
This guy “Chris Paduan” claims to be an elite American programmer who is above all the immigrants, Indians/Chinese/Vietnamese et al. His contention: folks like him are innovative, and built SV, and immigrants are destroying it.
Looking at his linked in profile, he took 9 years to get his BS degree (that’s right, nine years!). Graduated in 1999, and a decade later, holds the title of “Software Engineer” at Adobe.
Just so you know a little about the person whose comments you are deeming worthy of a response.
Chris, instead of lashing out at others, you would do well to take a deep thoughtful look inside yourself.
Let me examine what said in these posts.
American managers are
- not technically savvy so they hired fakes, and are not competent enough even to hire qualified personnel;
- are myopic, and could not predict the effect of their actions
- are greedy, and want to keep more money by paying less in wages by hiring low wage workers
- are self-centered and thought about keeping their own jobs, without giving a rats ass to what their actions do to their country’s future.
Still, you claim, you are better on your own. Pathetic analytical abilities indeed!
@Chris Paduan,
I never lived in the US. I spent a month in London, and I don’t really received any “on-the-job” training that I consider as “new” to my technical, or professional skills.
Everything that I learned, I learned by myself from various sources and it’s not related to where I’m living in. There is no formal or external training that I consider as “given” to me.
A good and qualified people are always self-motivated, and able to learn on their own by taking advantage of what is available around them.
Ok, and name your accomplishments. What have you created? What contributions have you made to the economy?
Indians in the U.S. have been trained by Americans. It’s been all over the news everywhere for the last 5 years. If you are all “good and qualified” then why are we hearing it? Is the entire news media making it up?
I’m still waiting for an answer.
CHRIS DUDE,
Which “you” do you refer to ? Me ?
Have I done any damage to your country ?
I SAID I NEVER LIVED IN THE US.
NOW I ASK YOU BACK, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE ?
CAN YOU WRITE AN IPHONE APP ? WITH A GOOD LOCAL DATABASE PROCESSING USING CORE DATA?
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT COCOA FRAMEWORKS MR. CHRIS PADUAN ?
YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT HAVE I DONE ? JUST VISIT MY DAMN WEBSITE. I’M NOT DEVELOPING THINGS FOR THE US ECONOMY. I DON’T LIVE IN THE US REMEMBER ?
IT’S ONLY FOR MYSELF.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT HAVE I DONE IN LONDON, YOU CAN ASK MY PREVIOUS EMPLOYER.
SATISFIED ?
YOU SHOULD GIVE YOUR CONTACT LIKE EMAIL OR WEBSITE OR AT LEAST SOME PHOTOGRAPH. SHOW SOME GUTS THAT YOU DESERVE THE RECOGNITION THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO PUT IN THIS POST, BY SHOWING WHO YOU ARE.
In case you don’t know yet, I bought Apple Products.
I registered and paid for iPhone Developer Program. I bought Snow Leopard when it was out.
I didn’t give up, despite the unfair situation of App Review, and tight competition in the App Store.
I contributed to the US economy by praising how good Apple software and hardware is and by buying their software and hardware.
I send bug reports occasionally, if there’s an OS problem.
I want to see Apple getting better and better.
I also very much respect the Mac / iPhone indie developer community.
Now, I ask you back, why would I do such thing ? I don’t even live in the US.
I advised people in my country to avoid piracy, and invest on legit software, or innovate based on the Linux kernel or distros.
Chris, you’re such a *******
Waiting for an answer in TechCrunch post is just plain stupid.
If you want to talk, and contact me personally, you should know what steps should be taken.
If you’re smart.
Ask your grand dad. From where did he migrate to US. Don’t be stupid. US is built by slaves and occupied by barbarians, you just got civilized few decades back and don’t try to preach what you don’t know.
Lets kick out every one, whose a descendent of people migrated to US after 1600.
Excellent reply, DD. People in the US generally tend to forget that they themselves were immigrants not too far in the past. And yet, here they are, accusing other immigrants. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
84% of the U.S. population was born here. That makes us a nation *descended* from immigrants, not a “nation of immigrants”. Before 1998 the number was 90%. America is also still 84% white. There’s a difference between immigrants from civilizations like Europe and those from Aztec-like barbaric cultures such as India where human sacrifice is still practiced.
There was one case in 2000 in San Francisco where there was a sudden rash of thefts from clothing stores downtown. Turns out 100% of the perps were from India. One Indian woman who was arrested screamed “I didn’t know about LAWS!”. These are people who have never seen a light switch. These are people from the jungle. There is no concept of law and order in India, only chaos. That is what makes my ancestors who came to America and BUILT it different from today’s immigrants. So far, imported Asian workers have done nothing but destroy the whole time they have been in America. The more of them we import, they more America will decline.
The original agreement in 1998 was they were only to be here temporarily and they would go home after the boom. Not only have they not gone home, they’ve TAKEN OVER. And after the takeover, we’ve had COLLAPSE. Why aren’t we demanding Indian workers honor the original agreement and go home?
@Chris Paduan
So, one lady said it and you attribute it to entire race?
I saw an American father who was gloating on TV Playboy program, while sending his 18 year old daughter for center-fold competition. Though I could never forget such a guy, I would not attribute it to any other American dad in a million years.
It is a simple fact that people like you exist on the earth, but we don’t lose hope on humanity all together.
There is a huge difference between skilled and unskilled workers. Skilled workers have done nothing but help.
On that note, as an American, I wonder if I can move to India.
Before the dollar and US economy collapse.
The fact of the matter is, left to themselves, these other developing economies can’t grow. India is growing because of the $45 billion being sent home in remittances every year by NRI’s from the U.S. to India. Without the U.S. to latch on to, India has no growth. India’s “growth model” is: send workers to the U.S. so they can send paychecks home. Give me any dirt-poor country and allow me to transfer $45 billion of the U.S.’s wealth into it every single year, and I will make it grow too.
Not to mention the $200 billion annual trade deficit with China – a trillion dollars since globalization began. Give me a trillion dollars and I can make a poor country “grow” too. All of India and China’s
growth” is based on manipulating the U.S.
If we were to send all of these TEMPORARY guest workers home as agreed in 1998, I guarantee you we will see the U.S. economy boom again.
The fact is, these workers will return home regardless. $50,000 is a king’s ransom in India. They don’t want to live here and become Americans – they are here to work for 6 years, harvest our wealth, and return home to India to retire. So, they are going to be going home anyway.
I would suggest for the sake of the U.S. economy, it’s in our interest to make sure our OWN people are the ones who are working and thus keep our skills and know-how in this country.
Training your foreign competitors by giving them jobs in the your technology sector so that they can return home and compete against you is NOT a way to stay competitive.
@ Chris
“If we were to send all of these TEMPORARY guest workers home as agreed in 1998, I guarantee you we will see the U.S. economy boom again.
The fact is, these workers will return home regardless. $50,000 is a king’s ransom in India. They don’t want to live here and become Americans – they are here to work for 6 years, harvest our wealth, and return home to India to retire. So, they are going to be going home anyway.”
Six years from 1998 is 2004. By your own statements, people should have been going back since 2004, and in your first statement you seem to want it. And yet, in second statement you don’t seem to like it.
I suggest you get your wishes clear first… not that your god makes them happen. At least it makes your stupidity not so obvious.
@Chris
“If we were to send all of these TEMPORARY guest workers home as agreed in 1998, I guarantee you we will see the U.S. economy boom again.
The fact is, these workers will return home regardless. $50,000 is a king’s ransom in India. They don’t want to live here and become Americans – they are here to work for 6 years, harvest our wealth, and return home to India to retire. So, they are going to be going home anyway.”
What do you want, really? Only way both of your statements can be satisfied is by getting immigrants, make them work, don’t let them send any money back home, send them back home after agreed time, and don’t let them take experience/knowledge/money they earned.
What an ass you are! No wonder you lost your job, and have taken full time, unpaid, job of posting HATRED in these posts.
When many of the US companies have set up their offices including technology development projects in countries such as India, it is not abnormal to see this reverse brain drain. Today, you can get good job opportunities with job satisfaction and reasonably good pay packages (in relative money value terms, and sometimes even in absolute terms) in India or China, and that too with the local offices of the same American companies, what is so surprising in this trend?
Talent will always follow the opportunities. Nothing unusual about it. What happened to the H1B visa quota this year? Is that not an indication of the things to come? Moreover, during the recent recession, U.S. has tried to follow some restrictive practices which has also dampened the environment for foreigners.
One should take notice of the fact that during last few years, several new technologies have been developed from out of India, may be through the research labs of the American companies. The fact remains that the American companies find it better to locate to places like India where they can pay less for the same work. But then the quality of research work is quite high. No surprise then that many Indians would like to go back where they would be willing to work even at some reduced package but with the added advantage of living costs being lower.
The only “brain drain” going on in America is Indian and Chinese guest workers getting into managament and keeping Americans who created SV out of the job market.
Assuming a merit based job market (which I think the US has), doesn’t the fact that the Indian/Chinese guest work got the job imply that they are better/more competent than the American how did not get the job?
No, it doesn’t imply that. It implies that Indians/Chinese got into management and only hire people of their own races. As a white American, I have been on the receiving end of this for a long time so I know it is happening.
As for merit, if Indian/Chinese have so much merit then why has importing millions of them since 1998 caused a massive economic collapse? Where are the millions of jobs you people promised to create?
And why are all the American companies taken over by Indian/Chinese workers going under?
PeopleSoft, Sun, Quark, Lehman, ComAir, MIT Media Lab Asia, Adobe, Microsoft. All taken over by imported guest workers, all dying. Obviously “merit” hasn’t done jack.
The American didn’t get the job because Indian/Chinese managers lay them off and won’t hire them.
IT and Silicon valley were built by Americans. It’s only the past decade that it’s started dying with Indians and Chinese at the helm. You people are delusional. Do they brainwash you in your schools to make you think you are better than Americans?
Why was Indian-written Vista and CS4 such a disaster?
Are you saying no Americans were involved in Vista and CS4 creation?
As per http://en.wikip...erating_systems, Windows has more than 90% desktop usage share. The picture says it is based on September 2009 data.
Mac has less than 5% desktop usage share. This is AFTER Vista debacle.
Still you claim MS is dying and Apple is doing great. It suits you!
I guess u got kicked out real bad by an Indian or Chinese….why do I see your reply to every comment made here?
Thanks for proving my point. Indians & Chinese don’t operate on merit, they operate on race. And the U.S. recession is the proof.
Biggest liability/threat for any company is reality/possibility of law suits. HR department in any big company has laws to prevent such.
If such racial discrimination happened to you, you would personally fare much better by finding a good attorney and sue that bad-ass immigrant manager than taking full time, unpaid, volunteering job of posing HATE posts.
If you are a selfish ass*&le, you can sue the company and gain yourself. If not, sue the manager and show him his place.
If all this racial discrimination is your own creation, just shut up, and improve your sills and find a real job.
@Not Chris
Errata:
First line – Not ‘laws’, it is ‘rules’.
End of second para – not ‘posing’, it is ‘posting’.
CHRIS: u seem to be a perfect nerd trying to get undue attention by posting ur inconsistent and irrational thoughts .. is it a reflection of how narrow minded the AMERICAN SOCIETY is and how insecure u all feel when u r challanged by handful of literates and intelligent people crossing over in “your” land .
YOU ARE SHOUTING BECOZ U CAN COMPETE. U R HANDICAPPED HENCE U R FRUSTRATED.
SEEMS U NEED TO CATCH UP WITH A LOT OF THINGS IN LIFE TO BECOME A BIT SANE.
BUT FROM WHAT U HAVE BEEN POSTING I AM SURE THIS LIFETIME IT IS NOT POSSIBLE.
IF U IN UR 20’s then we all are wasting time.
if ur more than that then WE ARE ALL WASTING TIME. — coz u r mentally unwell and seriously need a counsellor …. have u been bit by this recession and still unable to find urself a job?
it is very unfair on ur part to be caustic againt India and China ….. be a sport and pull up ur socks if want to be respected else people like u will keep on loosing their jobs and happiness for which u urself wud be responsible.
I think if you surveyed those folks who said they are returning home 5 years from now you will find that a large percentage of them changed their mind and decided to stay.
I agree. Surveys of what people “want” are often pointless and misleading, compared to what they actually do. Especially informal ones where you ask people to raise hands (brother please). Vivek, do you even have any data comparing surveys to say, 10 years ago?
Where are your numbers for how many / percentage of foreign tech workers are actually leaving and the delta over time? That’s the only number that really matters. At the bare minimum, you need to track the delta for your opinion poll over time.
Otherwise your post is just pure speculation. Absolutely nothing in your post shows evidence that anything has actually changed with regard to the likelihood of foreign tech workers to leave.
I agree too. I studied & worked in the US for a few years. Then I quit & came back to India in 2001. My fellow students (and a few co-workers) who were not from the US – all have stayed back (except for me & a French guy). Most of those guys said at some point or the other (over a beer) that they surely wanted to go back to their homelands someday. I have never regretted my decision to come back to India, in fact, I am more prosperous, and happier. But I am sure, that most of those guys (& gals) who stayed back are also happy with their subsequent decision to stay back in the US. As I realize now, happiness/ satisfaction (& success) are all a matter of your self-belief & all are relative. So, to each, his own.
@Chris Paduan: Dude, the USA is made up (almost entirely) of immigrants. Wake up, know your history. The early immigrants had wiped out almost the entire native Indian populations. The USA is a beautiful country, and a great people. Pls don’t put your people to shame by your immature rants. Your comments are being read all over the world.
Cheers!
84% of the U.S population was born here. And 84% of their ancestors were white and came from Europe. Almost zero Indians and Chinese were in USA before 1998. Now that we’ve been flooded with you, the world economy is dying.
European settlers built America without India’s help. Now that Indians have taken over America, it’s dying.
Indian immigrants != European immigrants – the economy proves it.
I rest my case.
Why are you putting the Indians and Chinese in the same sentence? You probably know that the large percentage of Chinese came to the U.S. in the 19th century to build the railroads.
Less than 5000 people came from China in the 19th century to build the railroads. Compare that with the MILLIONS that have come in since 1998 to take American IT jobs that they obviously are incapable of doing.
What country do you think Mr. Columbus was looking for when he found America?
19th century belonged to Brits. 20th century belonged to Americans. 21st century belongs to China/India. End of story. You can cry about it but cannot do anything about it.
You have point Vivek but it is not just the people who build the economy . The ecosystem also has to exist for entrepreneurship which is not much compared to valley. Then there is infrastructure and basic necessities which people take for granted in US but are luxury in India
This is just great! India for the Indians and America for the Americans!
Did you mean: America -for NATIVE Americans? You are kinda’ guest here, man.
Don’t forget about that. 
Sorry, I think the statute of limitations of being considered a “guest” has expired.
Awesome. And pray what is the statute of limitations on being a “guest”?
And after you pull the answer out, go wash your hands.
Hi – statue of limitations do not exist for criminal offenses. Today immigrants come and “live and let live”. A few hunder years ago, the immigants who came slaughtered the natives.
The problem with the native Americans is they were barbarians who weren’t developing the land. They were sitting in mud huts, smoking dope, and slaughterting each other in tribal wars. You can hardly compare them to European civilization.
Europeans came to America and civilized it and spent 500 years building it into the greatest country on earth. We brought civilization and invention to the whole world. And now after 500 years Indians are saying we are “guests” here?
India will use any excuse or rationale to say why they should be allowed to immigrate here too. Problem is, Indians are more like the original native Americans – not producing or developing anything. That’s the difference between European and Asian immigration. Everything you learn, was created by descendants of white European settlers who improved the land. Don’t forget that.
is anyone as amazed by this as i am
“please do not feed the trolls”
“Europeans came to america and civilized it.”
You mean genocide?
Or Is that similar to civilization of african americans you brought here too?
Slavery was started by Muslims around 400 A.D. not by Europeans. Slavery still exists in many muslim countries today. You don’t seem too concerned about that.
If Europeans committed ‘genocide’ against native Americans then why are there still a lot of them alive? Who runs Indian casinos in the U.S. Whites? If not for ‘European genocide’, native Americans would still be sitting in mud huts. Besides, they were comitting genocide against each other long before Europeans came to America.
Did native Americans invent the internet or PC you now type on? Did they invent all the industries India and China are now copying which keeps your people out of unemployment?
You should be down on your knees in gratitude to “European genocide”. Go read Shellby Steele’s book “Out of America” and see what he says: “Thank God my ancestors were sold into slavery so I could be born in America”.
The evil white man has brought civilization and every good thing to the world. India has brought barbarism, poverty, disease, and corruption to the world. You should be more grateful. Who gives you all the jobs in America rather than having to stay in India facing unemployment? The evil white man, that’s who.
Most tribes were peaceful.
(Note to self, never hire Chris Paduan.)
Will someone pls block this guy’s IP?
What’s wrong? Afraid of the truth?
The dead native americans would be glad to have been just sitting in the mud instead of being civilized
I am sure the rest of the indian americans are greatful to your ancestors for letting them run the casinos.
You are fine with your ancestors killing people in the name of civilizing them. You should consider that indians and chinese are civilizing you out of employment now.
Are you seriously suggesting, living in america slaving over your ancestor’s kids and wives is better than living free in africa? So your hatred is not just against immigrants but slaves your ancestors brought over?
Indians and Chinese are civilizing Americans out of employment? With what? Name the new industries, inventions, or civil things they are bringing to America.
What you really mean is they are ripping off civilization. Stealing, lying, and fraud are not civilized. At least not under U.S. law, that is. Now in India, and China, where there is no law but brute force, it’s a different story.
Thanks to Vivek for this great post, More often than my family relatives ask me why I am not considering moving to U.S to find better opportunities (more salary etc ) but I want to be in the league of young engineers who are building companies back in India and truly believe in the economic opportunity that lie ahead for us in India instead of moving to NY or Valley to work for somebody.
This is the kind of guy I admire. He is a patriot. Instead of fleeing for money, he is willing to fight for better conditions and jobs at home. It’s not about where you’re from, its about what you are going to do to make your home a better place.
Well said.
I really hate what money has done to my family.
Well, if they want to become purified by having less money, let me know, I’ll take it off their hands and put it to better use.
you got a gr8 photo blog though
Why would you say “back in India”?
Curiouser and curiouser…
Vivek, I agree with the concern, but I also support your finding not just on an international basis. While my migration brings me to Silicon Valley once a month to meet and greet people in the world capital of startups and technology and all of the infrastructure, I also support your finding and feedback from the Indian study subjects.
I also live near all of my family on both sides — older parents, siblings for both my wife and I, and friends with whom we have grown up. With kids now, I want them to know their family and extended family. I know I should be in SF or Silicon Valley to compete with the best in the world, but in life we do not get do-overs. No mulligans as they say in golf.
In today’s world with IP communications and collaboration, startups can be built and technology can be developed anywhere. I say all of this and I live in Los Angeles, not India or China. But all of the same issues are true with me as they are with the Think India gentleman. I understand why the want to go back Home.
The only thing Americans are afraid of is the fact the people from India, China OUTWORK them to death. Overtime is normal for them. American’s get ready to leave work 10 minutes before quitting time. Go to the bathroom, call the spouse to make plans for the evening and dart out at 5:01 and say I stayed until after 5 I am a dedicated worker. What a joke.
That is why workers from India and China are wanted they feel they owe their employers more just a 9-5.
So do foreigners take away jobs from Americans HELL NO, Americans give them away (there are exceptions, but it is a rule to live by)
Americans work smarter, not harder.
If I can work smarter and get the job done in a shorter amount of time, then I can leave at 4:30 and be home to have dinner with the family. Its a win-win-win.
And Americans have nothing on the Europeans who take 6 weeks of vacation and work 37 hour work weeks. Just because you “work” a stupid amount of hours doesn’t mean you’re accomplishing anything. Productivity is what matters not how many hours you work.
this is true…and it’s not just true because i read the same stats in the newspaper or saw it on the news…but because my mom always comes home and complains about how chinese imigrants although being just like other imigrants always find jobs faster and maintain them than others here…and my dad always wished his kids were asain because apparently i don’t have the work ethic instilled in me. ugh.
Here is how Asians find jobs faster. It’s called racism. Note the email group names:
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Sr. Electrical Engineer Position available @ Oplink
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:40:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Julie Koo
Reply-To: Julie Koo Julie.Koo@Sun.COM
————- Begin Forwarded Message ————-
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 08:43:52 -0700
From: Sabrina Chan
Subject: Sr. Electrical Engineer Position available @ Oplink
To: chinatown2000@sun.com, indians_ca@sun.com
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Accept-Language: en
Original-recipient: rfc822;chinatown2000@sun.com
Hi,
The company my friend works at is currently looking for a Senior Electrical
Engineer. If you know any qualified applicants, please have them send their
resume directly to: trinal@oplink.com.
Attached below is a copy of the job description. Oplink is a telecommunications
company.
Thanks
Sabrina”
Asians find jobs faster? Well, it’s no wonder, they send job opening to Asian-only people and block Americans. If I acted like a Mafia, I could get a job faster too. Note the email group address names:
@SuperMoonWaffle
If you want to really believe that hype go ahead.
That is why american business’es want to increase VISA’s, US workers are not dedicated to their work. US Workers should use excuse by numbers. #354 My dog is sick, #121 my car doesn’t work. Now where is my paycheck? So I can enjoy my weekend in Napa Valley.
Ask the founders of Facebook/Google how many hours they work? Even Steve Jobs any person that should retire and enjoy the rest of his life it is him. He doesn’t why? If I need to explain this you will never understand and just be one of the sheep.
Many of my friends hate google now since they can succeed more. Eytan being one of them. They could work 70/80 for no real chance of success. So they left the company to do other things. Much of the THINKING top talent has left google. They do have lots of talent, they are called worker bee’s. They do what they are told. Nothing more nothing less.
IN MY HUMBLE OPINION
I have worked every Christmas day since 1998.
Are you a millionaire yet?
If Indians and Chinese outwork Americans then why is Apple booming and Sun and Microsoft are dying? Americans are the most productive workers in the world. Indians are ranked 59th in world productivity. Name the new products and innovations created by all those hard-working Indians and Chinese. Based on the number of FOR LEASE signs in the valley and the economic collapse that has happened since they got here, I’d say we should send them all home now due to non-performance. Americans worked to create the IT industry long before any of you got here. Now that you’re here and unable to sustain IT, you’re saying your harder working than us? Where were you when we were inventing this industry?
According to a 2007 ILO/UN report Americans put in more hours at the office than anyone except the Norweigians. Go to CBS’s website and search on “American workers ranked first” and see what comes up. India wasn’t even listed in the report.
If Indians put in overtime, it’s either because they are too stupid to finish on time or else they are just trying to make it LOOK like they are working harder.
But what is the result of all that hard work? A CA economy bankrupted and dying. That’s the kind of “Hard work” America doesn’t need.
They usually stay the office so they qualify for the free dinner. That was the case was at my company.
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Sr. Electrical Engineer Position available @ Oplink
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:40:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Julie Koo
Reply-To: Julie Koo Julie.Koo@Sun.COM
————- Begin Forwarded Message ————-
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 08:43:52 -0700
From: Sabrina Chan
Subject: Sr. Electrical Engineer Position available @ Oplink
To: chinatown2000@sun.com, indians_ca@sun.com
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Accept-Language: en
Original-recipient: rfc822;chinatown2000@sun.com
Hi,
The company my friend works at is currently looking for a Senior Electrical
Engineer. If you know any qualified applicants, please have them send their
resume directly to: trinal@oplink.com.
Attached below is a copy of the job description. Oplink is a telecommunications
company.
Thanks
Sabrina”
They took our JOBBBBBBBBBS
Yeah. They are leaving and taking ‘your’ job away with them. Probably in a suitcase.
deydookarrrrjahhhhhhhhhbzzz!
http://www.yout...h?v=brj2UkUPjCI
From where? Cupertino?
@ Anand :
If you are working in silicon valley and not TOP TIER but infact working in US for the heck of it, you suck.
If you are not here … give up your job, take a loan, get admitted for MS in US, complete your masters, get a good developer position and then talk.
and your point is?
excellent, i suggest you move back to india too, since you are so much obsessed with promoting your own country, india… all what we can say back here at the US is good riddance…
Hi James, I don’t think you understand the magnitude of the problem. As more and more Chinese and Indians head home, more and more companies will start increasing their engineering and development hiring over there, dramatically reducing the head count here.
So basically US companies will start saying good riddance to you.
funny that you are posting under an American name… anyways,…, i have worked with the so called best and brightest, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they were just cheap labor, no imagination, do as you are told, boss worshippers,… . that is why no products are developed out of india…, because that country is has a hierarchical culture based on nepotism, and corruption… . let me mention one specific instance where i had to work with a team of 15 people from infosys… they were the most incompetent bunch of so called programers i have ever worked with… had to spend my time teaching those best and brightest basic programming skills… anyways, ended up recommeding contract termination… so they send them all back to india… it is definitely about cheap labor, nothing else…
I have had the same experience. India is a factory. period. Lot’s of hands, not much productivity, virtually no innovation. Big companies do stupid things all the time. This will turn out to one of the more stupid as they hand the critical parts that run their business to unfriendly nations. Do you really want the commies running your data center of having your source code if we get into an economic war with China?
I wouldn’t call it factory, blah..But I know the problem…Most guys in companies such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro go ‘onsite’ (to US) barely after 1.5 or 2 years of experience..
Out of these couple of years in the company, they spend the first six-seven months in training..basically they are not job-ready enough…And they are sent to “solve the customer problems”…
These companies are screwing the country’s brandname to save extra cash..
I won’t argue this fact. Being an Indian, I can tell you that we do place a lot of emphasis on sycophancy, boss worship, the whole shebang
And yes to be very honest, we do lack creativity and imagination. Just look at the state of our pop culture and art. Its bloody fuckin pathetic.
Yes, mediocrity rules in India. but it’s not because of boss worshiping.. The real reason is lack of real good education. Power of imagination comes from sound knowledge, and we lack that in India.
Fortunately, the present Indian PM understands this very well. Which is why he had set up Knowledge Commission in his first term, and its recommendations have just started to be recommended. This ‘investment’ on education has been happening after IITs and IIMs were set up 3 to 4 decades back.
China too has been investing heavily on education. The number of international patents coming from that country is an indication of that.
Btw, most of the replies here are from Indians, but practically none from Chinese. Wonder why!
Small Correction:
…and its recommendations have just started to be implemented.
funny, you just proved the authority worshipping statements above… praise for the indian PM, and knowledge commission… haha…
man, it is about the indian culture… a hierarchical, caste based, corrupt culture, by its definition, does not support free thinking and creativity… it is your messed up cow worshipping culture that is the problem… china would probably become a highly developed country, but india, not in a thousand years…
You might be right but do not forget that cheap Chinese labor has $2 trillion in its reserves and US depends a lot on China to buy its bonds and feed its screwed up banking system
You should have a read on the London Stock Exchange trading system meltdown (TradeElect). It was a .Net system created by Accenture. So, you have two American companies (Accenture and MSFT) responsible for a failure of epic proportions.
Of course, there were some Indian and Chinese working on the project too. Must have been their incompetence that helped to undo the brilliance of the American Accenture programmers?
You already have the Silicon Alleys in India (Bangalore,Hyderabad,Pune,Chennai) contributing a lot to the Silion Valley and you name any Hi-Tech company in the States,you will find them in these Silion Alleys including the likes of Google,Microsoft,Amazon,Oracle,CA,TI,SAP so on..
What is also contributing to the reverse brain drain is also related to the growing no. of such Global Software companies in these Alleys.There is a paradigm shift happening with Global software companies. The Economics of Software development combined with a huge talent base in countries like India or China in the (near) future will surely help power and sustain many of the Tech comapanies in the Silion Valley and elsewhere in the world.Already,International VCs have been funding several startups in India which serve global markets and this is only slated to grow…
So this reverse-brian drain will still benefit the tech valleys of the world particularly the Silicon Valley.It is a great time for IT Entrepreuners and companies in the US who can leverage this to their advantage with a positive impact to all.
Sankar
Name one high-tech company in the states that doesn’t do engineering in India? Apple. They closed their R&D in India in 2006. Did I mention their stock is at $190 and they are growing 600% a year?
Name one new product to come out of these so-called “Global software companies” in India. Lots of talk, but no products.
That huge talent base hasn’t been able to sustain any of SV’s companies so far. All we’ve had is economic collapse.
Please name what those VC-funded startups in India provide in terms of products. Not vague claims – name the actual products. You people are selling 5th rate services to companies and not doing the job. Ask Air New Zealand how much they like IBM India’s “services” and see what they say.
ask GE and Intel if any “indian” developed anything for them.
Ge had to bring its engine fan blade design work back to USA from India because when it produced the fan blades designed in India, they cracked.
Name the products invented by Indians for GE and Intel.
More vague claims – but Indians never provide the specific proof of their accomplishments.
You’re deluding yourself… Google this up if you don’t believe me…
the co-inventor of USB (Ajay Bhatt)
USB was invented by a multi-company standards committee. USB is also one of the worst technologies on the planet (no isoch data delivery, can’t burn a CD reliably over USB, bridges are all non-standard). USB is a terrible standard. Bhatt didn’t co-invent USB, U.S. companies did.
GE didn’t work on USB.
Name the products invented in India by Indians.
Intel is doing some great work outside the US. The Pentium M line which saved Intel when AMD was breathing down its neck in 2002-03 was developed in Israel.
If you are asking specifically about Intel products from India, then the recent Xeon 6-core processor is fully developed in India. This is the current top of the line processor for the server market.
Sun Microsystems and AMD were founded by Indians.
Amar Bose (son of an Indian immigrant to US) started Bose Audio. Hotmail.com’s co-founder was Indian. Zoho is completely developed out of India. Google Finance was conceptualized and developed out of Google India Labs.
And Chris, you are forgetting an important point here – US companies voluntarily go to Indian companies to have them provide IT services to them. No one in India is forcing them to come here. Indian companies provide excellent value for money with which many American/European companies are pretty content. You might be unhappy – but you don’t count as you are one of those junior employees who can’t do anything but cry and feel insecure about your job. Talk to your bosses, speak to your CIO and CTO – he is happy as they now don’t have to fork out billions of dollars to get the same services out of Americans which Indians can do at a fraction of cost. It is a free economy, people will go where costs are low and not where Chris(es) like you want to..
For one Apple did NOT have an R&D center in India. They had a customer support center which they closed due to the inherent inability of Americans to understand any other dialect other than there own.
And Apple’s stock at 190 is due to a hype called the iPhone which does not (IMO) provide anything new or ground breaking in the telephony market.
And just a FYI. A lot of Indians work in Apple too…
WRONG!
Times of India 6/3/2006
Apple software logs out of India
BANGALORE: The company that redefined the way we listen to music has decided to call it quits in India. Apple, known for its popular iPods, is pulling out its software development and support operations in India. The company had commenced operations in April and hired about 30 people for its subsidiary, Apple Services India Pvt Ltd.
At a meeting on May 29, Apple announced its decision to lay off all its employees. Apple officials told them that “the company is revaluating its operations and has thought of pulling back its Indian operations”.
Try looking up some FACTS.
600% growth in a cell phone can hardly be called “hype”. 45 million iPhone users disagree with you. “Hype” doesn’t sell 2 billion app downloads from the App Store. Apple is now the largest retailer of music in the U.S. That’s “hype”? I don’t think so.
Apple employs 45,000 total employees and contractors. Of those, a mere 1,308 are foreign visa holders – less than 3% of the total people working for Apple. Not exactly what I would call “A lot”. 100% of the presenters at Apple’s WWDC were white Americans – except one – he was an Australian. Not a SINGLE Indian presenter. Why?
And why is Sun, which is nearly all Indians now losing $150 MILLION a MONTH? Where is your brilliant innovation at Sun? Doesn’t exist, does it?
Sorry, but as usual, Indian BOASTING doesn’t quite match up to reality.
First of all Chris, if for you Apple is the only innovative company in the world, lets not have this conversation. Second, Apple is great not because of those 45k employees but because of one man who leads them – who is a son of an Syrian immigrant. You conveniently chose not to mention Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft where there are so many Indians who work and are doing very well. Who are you fooling? Try searching for their research labs in India and you will stand embarrassed.
And read the article. Apple had a software development center in India – not a fucking R&D lab.
And you mention about 5th rate services, wtf dude? US companies voluntarily go to Indian companies to have them provide IT services to them. No one in India is forcing them to come here. Indian companies provide excellent value for money with which many American/European companies are pretty content. You might be unhappy – but you don’t count as you are one of those junior employees who can’t do anything but cry and feel insecure about your job. Talk to your bosses, speak to your CIO and CTO – he is happy as they now don’t have to fork out billions of dollars to get the same services out of Americans which Indians can do at a fraction of cost. It is a free economy, people will go where costs are low and not where Chris(es) like you want to..
And don’t talk about individual companies loosing money. I can go on and on about all the financial mess your American friends have created. BTW, Sun is all Indians – where did you get that figure from. Let me guess – you have assumed it?
And to expand on your limited knowledge, the CEOs of the following ‘American’ companies are (were) all Indians. If board members of these big companies think that Indians are capable enough to lead the entire company, you should STFU:
Adobe: Shantanu Narayan
Motorola
Citibank: Vikram Pandit
Pepsi: Indra Nooyi
Vodafone: Arun Sarin
McKinsey Consulting: Rajat Gupta
@ Chris Paudan – To really understand,one needs to visit India and visit the Indian IT companies, only then one can see through the positive side.Otherwise things would look vague for any common man…
Sankar
I don’t see what’s so vague about a ‘Master in Computer Applications (MCA)’ and passing it off to a US HR yob as a Computer Science Degree.
Like this:
http://mindtake...megs-on_07.html
One day, 20 years from now, you Indian folks will get aggro enough to do what the Chinese are doing now, aggressively copying and REALLY innovating in their own geo. Until then, Hmm.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter....drunk_economist
We need immigrants to take on and fill up lower paying jobs in America. It’s a free market. It’s just the way it is.
If someone is willing to work for less, and do good work in the process, who is to deny them??
Lower paying jobs like all those IT jobs in Silicon Valley that pay $150K a year? Lower paying jobs like that? Jobs at companies created by Americans but now taken over by Indian workers who cause them to lose $150 million a MONTH?
Both PeopleSoft and Sun had to be sold off to Oracle in order for India, Inc. to avoid the embarassment of having to close the doors at both companies while being run by Indians. Adobe will be next.
One potential area for improvement — F1 student visas. I went to grad school in the US in a top-tier CS PhD program. I had more than one friend that got their PhD on US government grants (NSF, NASA, DARPA, or otherwise), with the government paying about $500,000 to cover the cost of their education. (If you assume the PhD program costs a grant about $75k/year, with average time to completion of 6.5 years…) These friends were all in the US on an F1 student visa.
What does an F1 visa mean? Primarily, it means two things: (a) every time you enter the US you have to argue with a surly border agent, and try to convince them that you plan on leaving the US as soon as you graduate. It is against the F1 rules to ever say “no, actually, I plan to stay in the US and contribute to the economy once you are done educating me.” (b) if you are married, and you want your spouse to live in the US with you during your 6.5 years of training during their prime working years — they have to be unemployed. It is next to impossible to get a visa which lets your spouse work in the US while you do your PhD. By the time they finished their degree they did what the US government “wanted” them to do — they went home, and now have nice jobs either in industry or as CS professors at top universities outside the US (and their spouses have nice jobs too!).
Fix these visa problems and you will have made a small, but concrete step towards making folks want to stay and contribute to the economy.
I think that the problem is even more severe than you suggested. Given the difficulty and hassle of obtaining visas to come to the US, fewer students are choosing to do that. Also, the current laws force graduates to return to their native countries after completing their educations and associated “training”. So the US not only has some percentage of Indians and Chinese voluntarily choosing to return home, but also some who are forced to do so. As Chris C. noted, this policy makes very little sense, basically setting up some of our most highly educated people to compete against US companies. Sadly, it’s looking less and less likely that the Obama Administration will get around to addressing this issue.
Forget the folks (like me) that are already here that might or might not go back. It is tough to go back once you get assimilated by the valley. With enough opportunities at home, I see the smart kids not even interested in leaving India. This is a brain drain that will never happen.
@shyamster
Its Hyderabad … not Hyderbad…
three-quarters are planning to go back, but how many are going?
Hopefully, all.
yeah..and they’ll take you too..
Reverse brain drain isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and also it depends on for whom. For U.S., it could be somewhat not beneficial in the short term, but again, they don’t seem to be so hungry for bright minds. Even if they do, they don’t look like. Or they have so many problems ahead so they cannot care so much about these issues. Anyway it is a good opportunity for countries like India and China, where they need good brains and tons of them. In a way, this will contribute to flatten the world. What worries me is that generally speaking, I feel, general public of U.S. lacks aspiration for excellence . And in the long term, it might be fun to hate intellectuals and elites in the short term, in the long run, it will damage the competitiveness of the country irreparably.
You forgot to say yu, that anti-intellectualism is based on Christianity of this country (higher than anywhere else in the world). THAT is the explosive mixture, sooner or later sombody’ll ignite this thing.
Nice article but written with a bit of a “rose” colored glasses. While a small fraction may return to India or China, overwhelming majority choose to live here. If you have been to India you will know it is NOT that easy to start a company or build one. Try incorporating a company in India.. Myriad of rules and bureaucracy is maddening. Also because of the school system in India that promotes more rote memorization than creativity, skilled people in general in India do well under a system where they simply follow orders. The culture to innovate or be creative does not exist in India. And I know this from EXPERIENCE. I have long roots on both sides of the world. It is fashionable to beat up U.S. It has happened throughout the history. Remember the 80s when Japanese were going to take over the world. Did not happen. Because U.S. is still the best place for an entrepreneur and for everyone person who lives the U.S., 100 will come. U.S. is a place where all of us from all different backgrounds work together to create valuable companies. Name one company from India or China engaged in creating original products or creative ideas? None. They all copy. Every single Internet company in India is a rip off of an idea that originated in the U.S. or Europe. Look at the entertainment industry… most Bollywood movies are rip off of a story line created in Hollywood. And we all know China is the capital of knock offs. So let’s not get all worked up… India has been a rising Tiger for the last 60 years. It is GREAT that India, China, Brazil. etc. are doing better. We want all of humanity to do well. But to say U.S.’ better days are behind is simply idiotic. Immigrants by nature are different. Most immigrants no matter their country of origin are of different breed – they have a thirst for success, want their children to succeed and take extra risk in life for a better life and opportunities. The fact they have decided to uproot themselves and go somewhere new tells a lot about their spirit. And that spirit is what will keep pushing U.S. ahead. All I hear in this post is complaints. The day the voluntary immigration to U.S. is zero let me know. Till then if given a chance overwhelming majority of people from around the world will still choose to come here. Good luck to people who are going back… it is noble and nothing wrong with it. But it is not a symptom of anything! Ask the Indians who came here in the 70s who came here and had to climb up a steep hill. They had it tough and succeeded through sheer determination and hard work. If today’s immigrants are also not willing to do the same heavy lifting… well let them leave. Why do these “techies” claim they will have a better lifestyle in India? because they can employ some poor Indian to work at home for pennies and ask them to bring water and food to them all day? That is better lifestyle? More like human abuse to me. On any given day go in front of any U.S. embassy in China or India and see the long line… and then please tell me bright kids from these countries are willing to stay in their native countries.
Well said. I agree.
But, China is getting more innovative now. It may not be a product for the world. But it’s innovative for their own market.
Yeah..Yeah..US is best place. Nuke others and than ask everyone to take first step to give away Nukes. Why does Uncle Sam does not take first step.
War every other country and justify need for it. perfect!
The finest comment today.
+1
@Ronnie,
A nicely stated opinion, but please next time when you write a considerable amount, use multiple paragraphs. Its much easier on the eyes.
@Ronnie – Agree that US or Europe has more innovations and original products , But its not just about innovating, its also about sustaining them in an optimised manner including the economics surrounding it which is probably lacking and which is why many such innovators/ product companies have thousands of people working for them in India
Sankar
People are returning in tons bcos the current economy is shaking of the loosely held and not bcos of rev brain drain.. Also.. As their kids grow up n start learning things their parents want them to be brought up in their own cultural env fearing they will end being confused desis as some refer them to as. This year number of h1b applications is not bcos of rev Ben drn.. But simply bcos there r no jobs in US for them rit now… Students are extending their graduation dates… Companies r cutting cost by keeping people offshore n not bring them here also sending back those who were onsite.. These r primary reasons for less h1b applns. Let theUS economy get it glow back and see people migrating back to US. The difference in STD of living and salaries are reasons sufficient enough to make most migrate n stay in US. Opportunities available in US are much much more than the opportunities created by those few companies that have tech centers in India or China.. thurst of Only handful of those aspiring n talented people can be quenched there.. Most of those who are in US just wishes ( not wants ) to back home.. Track the ones who say they will go back soon or in couple of years and see how many of them r really able to convince themselves to leave the comfort here n go back home… About snatching the jobs from the natives.. These Indians n chinese n brains from other countries here are just creating more compition for the natives n not really snatching their jobs.. Companies offer jobs on merits.. No one here has a govt alloted quota for some particular nationals or groups.. Everyone competes on their merits…
Since ages people and communities have been migrating for better resourses for making their own lives better… And it will continue to be like that !
Great post keep it up!
Very good post, and very true. When I arrived in the Silicon Valley in 1994, most immigrants were there for the long run. But now that outsourcing and quality education has brought India and China at a very high level of qualification in terms of software development, lots of those immigrant spent 5-10y in the Valley to make themselves a name, or at least a nice looking resume and some cash, to then return to their home country. This is a loss for the Bay Area, and for the US economy, period.
Unfortunately there is not much that can be done. India and China are more and more flying on their own regarding SW/HW design –even though the major design and idea cradle is still in the Valley. One goes to a model where ideas are kicked around in the Valley, seeded in the Valley, to then later developed and rolled out thanks to teams established in India and China. See http://bit.ly/3jC5yY for a further discussion on outsourcing.
Name one software product that comes from India or China that anyone uses.
More software comes from Scandinavia than from India. And the stuff that does come from India doesn’t work.
India has created this illusion that it is a software powerhouse, but where are the products?
check this out….
http://en.wikip...ho_Office_Suite
I said that anyone uses.
Except for the 12% American households that own a Mac, who uses Apple anyway..
Mac or the iPhones is unheard of in this part of the world..that’s 50% of the world population easily..
The Mac number is now 25% of households and growing phenomenally now every year. No one wants Indian-written Microsoft junk products anymore. American-made Apple software is vastly better.
iPhone sales are growing 600% a year. Show me one Indian-created software or hardware product growing 100% a year. Sun’s? No one wants Sun’s junk anymore. There are now 45 million iPhones in U.S. now and that’s just the U.S. in 2 years at current growth rates, it will be 100 million. That’s 30%, not “12%”.
iPhone is booming in Japan too. It’s not in China because protectionist China is afraid of competition. Indians won’t buy iPhone because of racism and nationalism. Too bad, you guys can keep using junk.
Apple is taking over the world. Everyone wants to be an iPhone programmer now. How many people want to continue being Microsoft developers? MS is the laughingstock of the U.S. thanks to India, Inc.
Indians are boycotting iPhone because of Apple’s policy of refusing to lay off all its American workers and replace the entire company with unproductive Indians. Only dying companies like Microsoft and Sun do that. In the end, Indians will have no choice. MS will go out of business and you will all be forced to use Macs and iPhones in the long run whether you like it or not. All the other junk products have become non-competitive.
F*** your antispam s/w credentials.
Just visit cisco, juniper and see how many indians and chinese are producing the code that runs the internet that you claim you own. Do you know who authored BGP protocol that keeps internet going?
“Zoho is a division of ZOHO Corporation A US-based company that has been creating and selling cutting edge software solutions since 1996.”
- from http://www.zoho...m/zoho_faq.html
Anyway, I forgot I have an account there myself. Since it’s practically a copy of Google’s services, I only tried it out because of the novelty. (A “new” copy.)
ZOHO was started by an Indian in USA, with indian school education ( but US university education ) and ZOHO is all coded in India, they probably have a sales office in USA.
- Krishna
Now there’s a brilliant idea: put the office suite online and then when the net goes down, you won’t be able to do any work. Another “brilliant” Indian idea gone into the crapper.
Chris,
You just dont get it i guess. let market forces decide if it is a good idea or not, not an individual like Chris.
And if you think putting software online is a dumb idea then all these are dumb too:
– Amazon S3 ( putting all your storage online )
– Salesforce.com ( these guys are scared of ZOHO, they tried to buy it )
- Google docs and everything else
- All your internet based email.
Btw , after reading all your posts, i am so sure , if you understand things like Amazon S3 and Salesforce.com, and what exactly they do, other than thinking they are such a great idea, just because they happen to be American products.
- Krishna
Re products, you really don’t have to look far as far as Chinese companies are concerned.
1. Asus/Acer – they lit the fire under the netbook market. These are Taiwanese companies that have moved a vast portion of operations to mainland China.
2. The mobile & telecom equipment market has been totally taken over by Chinese manufacturers with original products. See http://gigaom.c...th-bt-cto-hire/
What is scary about the rise of China is the combination of cheap labor with technology know-how, and the focus of creating new product companies. Granted many of the products are low-price copy-cats, but more and more they are focusing on better designs and implementations (see HTC Sense interface improving on Android). The Chinese government plays a big part as well through various policies. I worry a lot less about India as they seem to have more difficulties for whatever reasons to create their product companies, focusing on unscalable service companies instead. The only exception in India seems to be zoho.
China has blocked entry of iPhone to China because every “original” Chinese phone maker is scared to death of it.
So much for ‘globalization’ and ‘free markets’. Free markets only apply to U.S. and not to Asian countries.
The U.S. is forced to “compete” with China and India, but those countries won’t allow competition from America. Who isn’t globalizing now?
@chris – Mr. Troll… go back home to Europe.. ur grandad may be waiting..
First step the US should take:
Reduce international students into Ivy Leagues. They should be looking after their own before looking after foreigners who return to their own countries anyway.
@ Vivek Lover. How many of your own, can qualify for the Ivy Leagues? Ever thought about it? How much did you personally score in your SAT?
@George Mikalas,
Haven’t you seen several conglomorates managed by the so called IVY League guys with SAT scores of 2400 crumbling to dust? and the dust is yet to settle? You have people here probably with less SAT scores, No IVY leagues,but growing at a economic run rate of 7-8%, and you know the IVY leagues are making a beeline here? Watch out…
Bill Gates & Steve Jobs were both college dropouts when they built MS & Apple. No MBA morons there.
In the recent ranking of 100 top worldwide universities, Indian schools weren’t even on the list. Not even IIT. So much for the “best and brightest”.
@Chris
“Bill Gates & Steve Jobs were both college dropouts when they built MS & Apple. No MBA morons there.”
Is that the reason you took 9 years to earn your degree? Just to prove your point?
I have a whole bunch of cousins in U.S who have been chanting that they will return to India but they have never committed to it.
Brain drain reversal?? That’s a distant dream.
@latestphonereviews : Your cousins may form .00000000000000000000000001% of the total Indians and chinese population in the States
I’m sorry. I have to disagree with the article. The US is run by the smartest people on the planet and the US is going to be an economic superpower for at least the next century. Even if tens of thousands of Indians and Chinese move back to their countries, it won’t even make the slightest dent in the US economy. You have to remember, the labor productivity has surged and will keep on surging in the US. So, they need less people to do the same work. Also, what makes you think that these Indians and Chinese won’t be working for US companies in India or China??? This is the most likely scenario and it is GREAT for American business – they’ll have happy people in their own countries and the salaries will be lower. Sounds like a victory for the US!
It seems like every ten years some respected commentators make doom and gloom predictions about the US and somehow the US comes out even far more powerful than the “crisis”. People on the right and left have been predicting the demise of the US since the US was founded. What happened? The end result is that the US is more powerful, more prosperous, respects freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of the press and has managed somehow to integrate and capitalize on the best and brightest in the world.
I am an Indian-born US citizen and I can categorically state that…sorry…Indians and Chinese going back is no loss whatsoever to the US. It’s just a personal choice.
Dude you are clueless. America is run by the smartest people – not. Unless you mean the Goldman Sachs people who instead of being in jail pocket Billions and SEC picks up some little fish Indians.
America is going down were there will be no middle class, and all the jobs in India/China. US will start resembling Mexico in income distribution. Whatever is left will be destroyed by the cunning Saudis and our wars overseas were we are chasing our own tail thanks to traitors in Washington on Saudi payroll.
You my dear wear rose colored glasses and forget the perfect storm hitting the good ole Red, White, and Blue. Only a miraculous next President can bring back the USA.
America has a great entrepreneurial spirit and its indoctrinated into people at a very early age. It creates a culture where anything seems possible and its one of America’s greatest assets. I look across the pond in admiration.
There’s something in Indian culture and mindset that just really gets and is given to IT and software development. It undeniable. However as a nation they get shortchanged by outsourcing companies, who hire cheap and managers who put ‘Indians’ on the team as opposed to individuals graded by their skills, experience and suitability. Just as putting ‘Americans’ on a team without interviewing each individual rigorously would be disastrous. Which is a shame.
errr just realized that there was absolutely no point to my post.
@ America, you ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. your blessed with one of the best startup ecosystems in the world.
@India, would be great to see more of that dev talent channeled into startups as opposed to often crappy ‘outsourcing’ companies. show us what your made of.
Where is the Indian operating system?
Now it’s LAD’S chance: There are some kick-ass Argentine programmers Oracle has been hiring after Google hired that argentine Prodigy who helped decipher issues with the NASA that Indians weren’t being able to solve.
Latinamerica has some monster young kid programmers!!
Guys wake up: Let the Chinese n Indians, there’s always better n cheaper. You’re looking in the wrong direction: start going south! Forget left and right on the map.
Where is the Latin America operating system? Chavez? Patratrooper OS?
That’s a good one.
Americans are the best programmers in the world. Even Japan couldn’t beat us in software – and they rarely fail at anything.
holy cow!!! what with operating systems dude!
To India, yes.
To China — not so much.
Oppressive state regimes are antithetical to creativity & the highly independent-minded (as great “brains” and innovators often are).
Remember why Einstein chose America (at the time), despite offers from around the globe. The same principles apply today. India has a much brighter future in the longer term view. China has a head start, that’s all.
& @ TC: Thanks for paraphrasing many of the ideas first put forth the 2004 book by Richard Florida, The Flight of the Creative Class.
Due to the vast pool of global talent and the growth of many nations there no longer is a need for immigration to the United States. Companies and people will migrate to those places that offer the best opportunities for wages and lifestyle. Vivek’s post is timely and should help us to to understand just what is going on if we have not been paying attention. Consider it a lesson in history. Remember history always repeats it’s self.
Vast pool of global talent?
Name one new industry to come out of India or China in the past 500 years.
Or even one new product that anyone uses for that matter.
@Chris : Have you heard of the idli , Dosa,Vada Pav and Chikan Tikka business which is a $10 billlion original Indian business and Chickan Tikka being named as one of the National dish in the UK? Do you know where from the Starbucks “Chai” ,Turmeric and Chinese tea that you may be consuming? They are more than 500 years old…
Odd, no one outside of India has ever heard of them.
Some tea and food?
I said industries and products – not food.
The issue here is India’s alleged IT brilliance. Where are the products?
Brilliance alone can’t produce products. It needs an ecosystem.
India with its economic liberalization policies is getting there.
You will have your wishes, new OS, new products, granted in another 10-15 years.
How apropo. Basically because of the gutting of SV among other things, we’re in for a lost decade:
http://mindtake...-reboot-11.html
Seriously, if you work in tech, this talk by Sterling is worth your time.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter....drunk_economist
If you’re hungry for power, and wealth, America is not the place to be right now. America is a declining superpower, while INdia, and China are ascending.
Staying in America, and missing out on the Indian, and Chinese boon of the 21rst century would be similar to remaining in Great Britain just after the Victorian era.
Fortunes are gained by being in the right place, and finding opportunities. India, and China are the right places to be.
Except that both India and China have property rights – especially intellectual property rights – laws that are antithetical to prosperity. Nice try though.
India hasn’t mastered concrete and indoor plumbing yet. 600,000,000 people defecate in the open every day. Superpower? Keep dreaming.
This is another proof of your stupidity. You can’t distinguish the difference between technique, technology, economic strength, and public health.
I agree what the author said here. I arrived in this country some 7 years back and I have an advanced degree. But for the last 7 years I have not grown a inch career wise. I am still there where I started . Whereas in India I worked for 5 years and had rapid career growth . Now all the junior members that started with me in India as trainees are in senior management positions. And I guess that is one of the reasons why people would like to go back..
Obviously, you are a dumb-ass just like most of the Indians I’ve ever worked with. Why don’t you go back?
Wonderful! Corporate ladder climbers can be found in any nation – you simply have not appreciated the opportunities you have in this country because you have an incompetent mindset.
It takes a noob from India 7 years to master basic programming – if they can at all. If they make it to manager they either did it via nepotism or else it took them 20 years. Best and the brightest…..
For Chris Padaun… it seems to take a life time. Even after such a long sting with Programming, he is still carrying ‘Software Engineer’ title, demonstrated pathetic analytical abilities.
Dude, unless you flush out HATRED, you life gets much worse!
Vivek,
Very interesting article. Some comments
If you look at the infrastructure and eco-system available in the valley it is hard to imagine that one group of people leaving will create a vacuum. This would in all probability be filled with someone from some other country if not India / China. Interesting thing to understand is which country might this be?
Whether its India or China, the people in this country carry an enormous amount of clout in influencing things for their respective countries. Losing this would not be in the best interest of that country.
Having said this, the brain drain is obvious. I myself moved back to India six years back and am happy doing what I am doing. Most of my friends are either moving back or have already moved back. Unless something is done to stem this, the US will lose talent, leave aside the country considerations that color a lot of these issues.
Please list the benefits to America that this alleged Asian “talent” has created. Don’t be vague. Please list the specific things this “talent” has done to help America. Asians keep saying “talent, talent”, but where are the economic benefits of that “talent”? We’ve had collapse, not growth. Before all this Asian “talent” got here, America was booming. The only “talent” Asians have is at deception and taking what other people have created. Now that you’d destroyed America, you are all going home? You’ve accomplished your wealth-gathering mission and there’s nothing left to take, right? Good job. You got your prestige and money from us and now you don’t care what happens to America. Why do Asians only want to come “help” America when there is something here to take? I can assure you, as soon as Americans clean up your mess and make America successful again, you’ll be the first ones wanting to come back in.
Where did your parents come from? Or may be your grand parents? Were they driven from their home lands or were they looking for “prosperous place to live”?
My great grandparents came to America from Italy and Germany in 1906 – from civilized European countries. Not a country like India which is uncivilized and where human sacrifice is still practiced.
One other thing about my great-grandparents – they came here and started at the bottom and worked hard and actually created things and loved America. Over 4 generations our family has been able to prosper because of honest hard work.
They didn’t come here with fake degrees, no skills, get trained by Americans who had been here for 3 generations already, then kick the natives who trained them out of their jobs so they could make $100K right as they stepped off the plane.
Today’s immigrants from India and China do all of the above. They hate America. They are here for the money so they can retire in 6 years when they go home. They step off the plane, kick Americans out of their jobs, ask to be trained, and then expect to make $150K a year with a fake degree.
They are incompetent and collapse all the companies and deliberately keep Americans out of the workforce.
Not quite the same as my great-grandparents.
It all comes together! The world saw how civilized Germany and Italy were under Mussolini and hitler. Just this aftenoon I was taking to a ww2 soldier, who fought in Germany, he told a story how Germans, where Chris civilization comes from, still thing their golden age was in 1938!!! Come on Mr Padua, time to blame Jewish bankers for the civilized deeds of the Nazis!!!
Exactly Chris,
Germany was a great and civilised country, and Hitler was saint, who preached values like peace and promoted anti – human sacrifice sentiments by nurturing Jews.
Is this what you imply. This one post makes you look like you have very less IQ. And Italy is no less either with your Mussolini. And we all know what italians were in the US in the early part of 1900s, gun toting mafia.
- Krishna
You have to admit Germany was pretty orderly in 1938. Maybe racist, maybe. But orderly.
Can’t say the same for India today.
And you are aware that Hitler’s Mein Kampf is the #1 best-selling business book in India right now, aren’t you?
http://www.huff...a_n_190064.html
Indians, not Americans are the new Nazis. This explains why they only hire Indians once they get into American companies.
@Chris, wonder how do you rank jewish talent vs. pure white european talent?
“…they could make $100K right as they stepped off the plane.”
Huh! Only dumb ass like you would pay $100K, right as they step off their plane.
In other posts you say they are cheap labor. You don’t seem to understand what ‘cheap’ mean, and seem to argue with your fascist mind set.
People here are looking for some facts. Do you know what ‘fact’ means?
You sound like a fascist
@Chris – No body from India or China is going to rant about the Whys? They are busy and may not have time with the economic growth rates of 8% or more , you need to spend time with the companies and people who have made and are naking billions of $ in India or China, even they may not have the time for you as they are busy looking at making good returns, you need to pack your bags and live there for a year or so to understand the many Whys that you have…. This is the practical way to ward off ignorance
India’s growth rate is negative. It’s all hype. They lied about the numbers. TOI admitted it. Go search their site.
http://timesofi...how/4313352.cms
@chris— a.k.a. lou dobbs a.k.a foxnews… so scared of Indians and Chinese… just COL
Not scared of Indians and Chinese, just scared of Indians destroying the U.S. economy.
They can’t, even if they try, match Y2K debacle you manage to create all-by-yourself!
America is boring to me.
Nice article! And great to see some solid numbers within the story.
I agree with the comment made that it’s not a zero-sum game; having the business relations and personal friendships in place should still ensure some beneficial flows of money and ideas between silicon valley and all the other places that will hopefully provide new and different hotbeds of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Maybe they are just leaving because Silicon Valley is a hell hole? I wouldn’t want ot live there either. Choosing between the crap house for a million dollars and the strip malls and a mansion with servants in India sounds a hell of a lot better.
They are leaving because there are no more jobs here. They cleaned out all our companies and sent the money back home. $45 billion annually goes back to India from USA through remittances. No one wants to live in SV any more – it’s been ruined.
Now that there’s nothing left to take, Wadhwa is trying to cover for their exodus by saying that they’re going home because of opportunities there. If there are opportunities there, it’s only because we’ve given them the skills and money to compete against us now.
@Chris – The real goals of any Silicon Valley folks are to innovate,contribute and create jobs and they would go anywhere in the world in pursuit of this…
Then where is the innovation? Biggest recession in 70 years is a contribution? That’s the kind of “contribution” America can do without.