

An open letter to the IIT Graduates - saching90
http://www.sachingupta.co/2012/11/an-open-letter-to-iit-graduates.html

======
denzil_correa
The author has another blog post [0] where he writes and I quote

    
    
        If you are not from a premier institute and you have to 
        work three times harder to prove yourself, but if you 
        have that prestigious degree you are welcome aboard even 
        if you don't have it in you.
    

Inadvertently, he has pointed out the actual problem. Sure the graduates from
IIT's are sucked into "brain drain" but what about the rest large chunk of
population who are as good if not better but don't have the brand label? The
Indian society largely ignores (or in certain cases even castigates them) for
thinking "out of the box". It is this section which needs to rise to the
modern world and act with rationale rather than orthodox societal norms. For
example, Arunachalam Muruganantham (now dubbed as the "Tampon King") was
abandoned by his own wife, daughter and fellow villagers while developing a
low cost (33% cheaper) sanitary napkins for lesser privileged women. In
addition, the Indian government did not incorporate his solution into their
national program. In this case, Mr. Muruganantham had the drive to go beyond
all odds and get the job done. In a country where taking up "Arts" over
"Science" is considered as being "weak in education", the number of
Muruganantham's India has lost as a result of archaic societal norms would be
a very good question to ponder upon.

[0] [http://www.sachingupta.co/2013/01/you-aint-from-iit-you-
aint...](http://www.sachingupta.co/2013/01/you-aint-from-iit-you-aint-good-
enough.html) [1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-tampon-
king...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-tampon-king-who-
sparked-a-period-of-change-for-indias-women-7897093.html)

------
quanticle
This is a lovely essay, with some heartwarming sentiment, but at its core, it
is misguided. He fails to ask, "Why are IIT grads so certain that they'll find
better jobs outside of India than they will in India?" And the answer is
twofold. First, the corruption and bureaucracy of the Indian government makes
it very difficult for entrepreneurs to get new businesses off the ground.
Second, India, like many other Asian countries exerts social pressure against
non-conformity and risk taking, both of which are required for
entrepreneurship.

You want to start a business in India? Good on you. Now you have to fill out
hundreds of forms, pay bribes, wait for _years_ for approval to go through,
and then get shut down anyway because some local politician decided he just
doesn't like you. As if that wasn't enough, there's the culture. Indian
culture, like many Asian cultures, looks down upon non-conformity and risk-
taking. If you're a newly minted IIT graduate, how exactly are you going to go
home and explain to your mother that you turned down that great job in
_America_ from a prestigious western firm and instead want to work for a
"start-up" (a word that all too many equate with "bum" or "layabout")?

While India _is_ changing, the combination of government regulation and social
pressure still makes it very hard for new IIT grads, who are often from modest
means, to do things he's advocating.

EDIT: modified introductory paragraph to better reflect the content of the
argument.

~~~
cmadan
For a web startup in India, all you need to do is fill out an application to
register as a proprietorship or partnership and start hacking away. The
proprietorship form takes about 30 minutes to fill out and is processed in two
weeks and you don't need to pay a bribe.

Once you scale up such that you need to change from a simple proprietorship to
something more structured such as a private limited company you can hire a
lawyer to do that for you. You could incorporate in India, USA or Singapore -
whichever one suits you. I know startups in all three of these categories.

As for the non-conformity and risk-taking - I think that is exactly the point
the blog author is trying to address - someone has to be the first one to stop
conforming to the societal roles and IITians should lead the way.

~~~
nsomaru
Why would people incorporate in the States/Singapore?

~~~
movingahead
Indian company laws aren't very startup friendly. Also, if you are looking to
raise investment from a US based VC, they are much more comfortable in
investing in an environment they know better.

Also, there are quite specific advantages of incorporating in USA. Indian
payment gateway providers don't offer the same set of features that the
Western providers do. This may have changed lately as more payment startups
have started in India.

PS: This is based on what I hear from founders at various conferences in
Bangalore, and not on first-hand experience.

------
intended
What is missing in the letter, is the frank admission that this is a mission
which requires the toughest, brightest, bravest and most tenacious of IIT
alumni.

The "system" here is extremely harsh, byzantine and dangerous.

Satyendra Dubey, an IIT-K grad, died because he was exposing corruption in the
golden quadrilateral infrastructure project.

My Ex-bosses who returned to India from the states to found a startup, were
greeted by local MLAs who wanted a cut to allow them to enter the new
premises. (They gave the MLAs the figurative finger and had to find
alternative arrangements.)

If you want to complain about laws and regulation, India is the stuff of
legend. Recently the way service tax is calculated was overhauled. Hoo boy.

We have an issue with the grey/unregulated economy. Small scale businesses,
think a little guy in a village which is up and coming starting a rent-a-car
business, often don't pay any tax.

Since the GoI can't go after them, its going after people who use these
services. Firms now pay their share of Service tax on services received. They
also must pay the portion of Service Tax the service provider is supposed to,
and apply for a refund. And if the rent-a-car group doesn't have a Tax ID
number, well - you wont be getting the refund then. (essentially this is to
force people to register) That's just one clause of the Service Tax Act.

Then there is the work culture, and the strange tendency of people wanting to
be philosopher lords.

I do not say its not doable - it is. Every day people manage it, but it must
be made clear, that getting people back maybe one thing, they also need to be
able to maneuver, finagle, and bull their way through a jungle of
difficulties. We need Frontiersmen, more than we need Entrepreneurs.

~~~
philsnow
Can you say anything more about this tendency to want to be "philosopher
lords"?

------
paddy_m
This is silly, what does anyone owe a country? With few changes a letter like
this could implore Americans to serve their country by joining the military.
Governments compete and economies compete for smart people, apparently India
isn't attractive to many of IITs graduates. I think that is India's problem,
not the graduates'.

~~~
alphamale99
See it from a perspective of somebody dying next door,you just leave because
you get better job somewhere else.

India's problem is 700 Million people are fighting to survive.Its insane, the
best brains leave the country and the looters loot as much as they want, its
the brain drain causing so much damage.Imagine a family left to die for itself
because all the family worked hard to get their son engineer,now the engineer
turns around and says thank you.I got to go, I cant provide for the family,I
have to live my life.

I will say open letter to all the ivy league univ's come solve world problems
because you claim you are the best. Dont turn around and say its government
problem.

This world needs a better human race with conciousness, there are over a
billion people without food n water.

Most of the point the author is trying to drive that point not nationalist
idealogy.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Why does the IIT grad something more than any other human?

~~~
appreneur
They are not better than any other human, but tend get more opportunities to
make difference than normal grads, but they just shoe them away.

------
mahoganyslide
I'm a first generation Indian American (born and raised in the US), but this
still felt like a call to arms to me personally, right in the gut. As I'm now
entering a stage in life where I've really started to ponder the significance
of family and lineage, I can't deny that there's a reason behind why I was
blessed to have been born in the US: my parents left a life of few means for a
foreign country in order to provide for their family members back home. I
wouldn't be typing these words if it weren't for their struggles. It's a
little odd that, while proudly bearing the "Indian American" label and caring
very deeply about the US, I don't give much thought to the very serious issues
India is facing right now.

Generationally speaking, I'm not even that far removed from India. Maybe I
have an existential debt to pay? Regardless, this open letter reaffirmed a
notion that has been lingering in the back of my mind for some time: the big
problems, the ones truly worth fighting for, can only really be found in
places less fortunate. The $64,000 question is whether or not I can cultivate
the necessary courage.

On another note: the letter also casts an interesting light on the role of
elite institutions, or on anyone in a position of power really.

------
aviraldg
I've read hundreds of essays about this, and India's "brain drain" and written
several myself. What is common to all of them is that they forget to take into
account the background of most IIT grads - middle class and lower middle
class. So, it's way more important for them to get high-paying jobs and to
help their families out, than to stay in India and help improve it. That will
happen, with time, as the standard of living keeps increasing and the same
financial pressure doesn't apply to new IIT grads.

------
arocks
IIT is a brand in India and in most parts of the world. It opens several
doors. In the past, IITians have been highly entrepreneurial and continue to
do so. Some of the companies [1] started by IIT Alumini like Infosys,
Flipkart, NIIT are quite well known success stories.

Again, contrary to what the letter might suggest, studies have shown that
every IITian creates about a hundred jobs[2]. Unlike most technical
institutions in India, IITs have startup incubation centers in the campuses
which give funding for ideas based on sound business models.

Anecdotally, I do come across a lot of IITians in the startup space who claim
to have the idea for the next Instagram or Facebook. But, I am happy to see
that today IITians have embraced entrepreneurship compared to the brain-drain
scenario several years back.

I only wish that brilliant students from other technical institutions had the
same unenviable opportunities that an IITian has.

[1]: [http://www.quora.com/Which-companies-startups-have-been-
foun...](http://www.quora.com/Which-companies-startups-have-been-founded-by-
IIT-graduates) [2]: [http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/11iit-every-iit-ian-
has...](http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/11iit-every-iit-ian-has-
created-100-jobs-survey.htm)

------
rwbt
This article reinforces the current problem in the indian society. You _need_
to have a brand label attached to you to get a decent job. First off, India
has 16 IIT institutions and they accept less than 10 thousand students each
year. Also, the process of admission is based on an entrance test which is not
perfect. More than half a million people write the entrance test and only less
than 2% of them are given admission. So you can see how valuable the IIT label
is to students (which the author isn't shy boasting). The people who get an
admission are usually very smart and they go on to find decent enough jobs.
But, the rest of the huge chunk of students are denied any good opportunity
and many equally smart people who don't get into IIT have a hard time finding
any decent job.

IITs are way overrated in my honest opinion. Sure, they are good, but not by
any means the only hope for a true innovative society in India. True
innovation comes from the ground up and solving real life problems. Most of
the people from IITs I've seen are very elitist and have no interest in at
least working for Indian companies, let alone usher in a new era of hope and
change.

------
atishay811
I live in India. Don't own a startup but have been studying the market. A lot
of things make India tough: 1\. People are taught not to pay - When computers
started proliferating India, it was almost 100% piracy. Apart from OEM bundled
Windows it still is. TPB in India is the standard. When you ask consumers for
money, they want a physical good because virtual should be free just like it
has ever been on TPB. Apps do not sell. 2\. Insane justice system - If someone
just stole what you did and started selling it, it would take twenty years to
to get justice. And that may not even happen if that person is influential.
3\. Strange tax laws - The indirect taxation policy has loopholes. People can
steal taxes, play bribes and remain a monopoly. It is not everyone's cup of
tea, but those that are good at it are very rich in India. A lot of the rest
promote leaving India as a good option. Fighting is also not what everyone can
do.

Having said all this, a lot of start ups are bubbling in India. Maybe a few
years down the line, doing a safe and legal software business would be as
profitable in India as in the States even for the middle class.

------
catchmrbharath
I think one of the reasons why startups are hard in India is the people's
'willingness to pay' is pretty low. Everybody wants things to be better, but
nobody is willing to pay for it.

Consider the case of flipkart. If flipkart, at some point of time decides to
not provide free shipping, then people won't buy from flipkart. They are ready
to go to some local shop and buy the same thing, grossly ignoring the time
they spent in doing that.

Having gone through the campus hiring process, I saw none of the Indian
companies investing in something like interviewstreet for their hiring
process. Most of the Indian companies asked you to write code on paper or
answer multiple choice questions. They are not ready to take into account the
logistics that has to go in to have such a system which would have costed the
same as using interviewstreet.

Hence most of the Indian companies are mostly incorporated in the US, and the
engineering is done in India. When Indians realize to pay for something that
is valuable, then there might be some change in the startup ecosystem here.

~~~
itsbits
i donno when is the last time u went to your campus...but now most of the
companies hire interviewstreet for their hiring process..and few of them are
Indian companies as well...

~~~
catchmrbharath
I attended my job interview this semester. So I have seen very few companies
use interviewstreet. They sometimes use some automated grading systems, but
they have to be deployed on the institutes servers. This has led to a lot of
delays.

------
roasm
While I'm not an IIT alum, this call to arms is relevant for all of us, the
readers of HN. We are (grossly generalizing here) a fortunate group with the
choice that we can make our communities better with our work.

------
kercker
Some problems mentioned in this article also exist in China. Many young
Chinese complain about the society, but do nothing to change that situation. I
think a letter like this should be sent to the graduates of every
universities, not just prestigious ones like IIT in India, or Tsinghua in
China. Because history is not made by some elites, history is created by
people of all ranks.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Then let's not forget Beijing University class of '89...

~~~
mayanksinghal
Could you elaborate a little more, I am curious!

~~~
seanmcdirmid
June 4th, 1989, Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Parent was talking about Chinese
youth inaction, which is not really the case historically; it's just the last
beat down was kind of extreme.

------
k_infinite
"We have power to choose, the resources to create our own paths and the
capability to shape our own destiny. There are people out there, who spend
their whole lives living it not as they want to, but as they have to. We on
the other hand, surf an open field, with an option to steer whichever way we
want. But alas most of us take the easiest path. We don't realize we are meant
to lead and not follow, to create not consume, to innovate not duplicate and
lastly to be the cause of the change and not be an insignificant part of it."

This resonated with me. I took the liberty and made some kinda-minimalistic-
style wallpapers for myself, if anyone interested, here they are:
<http://imgur.com/a/cXMf6> If you're not comfortable with this, just leave a
comment and I will take them down. Cheers.

------
askar_yu
"How sad it is that there is not a single startup like Google, Facebook or
Twitter from India, even though they are being powered by Indians in the
silicon valley"

I have a lot of respect for Indian IT workforce, having worked closely with
Indian RnD at my previous company. I think nobody disputes Indian contribution
to IT sector be it in US or anywhere else for that matter.

But coming across statements like above, I often shake my head amused. I've
even had conversations with people who tried to convince me that it's the
Indians behind all US's success in CS/IT and that it's the Indians that are
powering Microsoft and NASA, and what not, you name it. Coming across
statements like that I've wondered do they really believe that or is it just
blowing smoke...

~~~
hideo
I think there are two opposite angles at play here.

A) Some people who make these statements are asking questions from a talent
perspective - i.e. "if these guys are good enough to solve hard problems in
the US, why can't they put their skills to use in India?". This is a valid
question, with a multi-faceted answer. By and large it comes down to "They
can, but it's really hard because... <various issues>".

B) Some people who hear these statements co-opt them into their own semi-
jingoistic quasi-xenophobic narrative of a land of geniuses of time immemorial
being held down by various modern external forces. They see it as just another
factor.

I suspect this author is from category A. This is a very valid question and I
know TONS of people (not just the youth) working hard to try and break these
issues. Entrepreneurship in India is hard, and trying to cut it without
'influence' is almost impossible. We have many problems and this is just one
of them. People are working across the board to solve many of these problems.

Unfortunately, people from category B are a very vocal lot. You're very likely
to have run into them because their opinions are abrasive and they stick with
people. Shake your head at them and move on - They just crave attention. Or if
you want to have some fun ask them about how we invented zero - it's their
favourite topic.

------
khitchdee
India has a thriving startup culture. See <http://yspages.com/browse/company/>
for a list of about 5000.

------
itsbits
Actually the motto many join IITs are to get a big job with big pay...they
join there for that as a sole reason..even thgh many would want to do
something new and innovative(as i being one of them), just the dreams of my
parents or family repel them taking such task where there is a very less
chance of success...IITians are grown for a sole reason..end up with big
pay...but i see some change now a days...

------
dominotw
I recently interviewed at AirBnb and one of the first question the interviewer
asked was if I did my undergrad at an IIT. This was a regular while guy in San
Francisco. And I am not a fresh grad, I have been a programmer professionally
for over 10 yrs. I thought it was insane that he choose judge me by that
metric where there were so many other metrics he could go off of.

------
alphamale99
My open letter to all ivy league univ guys from the world.

India's problem is 700 Million people are fighting to survive.Its insane, the
best brains leave the country and the looters loot as much as they want, its
the brain drain causing so much damage.

Why they are able to do so much corruption? Is it not brain drain, because the
good guys are retiring and the next lot are leaving the country.

Its taken a dangerous turn these days with corruption in the range of 100
billion dollars,people will die in millions because they cannot afford food in
a decade,(think food subsidy corruption),they cannot afford gasoline (high
prices),they cannot travel , they cannot eat , do you think the less
privileged will survive? If this continues for too long,you can imagine the
plight of poorest of the poor.

The core problems india or for that matter world is facing of hunger/human
trafficking/arms race/drug trafficking ....these are the problems.

Try to solve these problems ivy league univ guys, then you can claim you are
the best lot of us.

We have this amazingly intelligent lot who dont care about how the world
suffers, I question the rationale of not solving big problems if you are from
big ivy league university.

We are better human race than we are displaying , kindly come forward and save
the millions.

------
manojlds
Only thing I don't agree is the timeframe. This hasn't been happening for the
last few years alone. It's been the case for over a decade at least.

------
known
Indian education system is designed to create employees, not employers.

