Patience my friend, you have seen nothing yet!
I just came across this article “In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation” in New York Times and could not help but agree with most of the points mentioned there. Many articles have been written before on this subject, where they compare our investor environment with that of the Silicon Valley. However, most of them miss out on one crucial aspect. It is not just the change of the environment with more incubators for startups that is required or the need for the Government to make bureaucracy less tiresome but it is our mindset that has to change.
We, Indians, are highly risk-averse people. Right from our childhood our upbringing is such that parents encourage us to dream of becoming doctors and engineers so that our life is set. You may eventually branch out to some other field but it is so. Further, our educational system is oriented more towards rote-learning, and testing us on facts rather than on concepts, and forget the whole personality development part of it.
Even in IITs and IIMs exams are such that if you do not study the whole semester but on the last day, you can get through. Very few professors actually test you on your clarity of concepts, who encourage you to apply yourself. Further, so much importance is paid to hard-core numerical subjects that softer skill-based courses are so often ignored. Just go to any IIM and you can see for yourself – students toiling under the burden of 8-9 finance electives in their second year just to get that “one” course, which will be instrumental in making or breaking their future in an I-bank.
And what do they miss out on? Courses like Strategic Business Negotiation, Advanced Oral Communication, and Entrepreneurship, etc. I would say these were probably the best courses I had taken during my MBA. It is these HR courses that eventually help you in your professional and personal life.
As a community, we Indians generally get married latest by 28-29 years of age. And with marriage comes responsibility and pressure to be earning well enough to support our family. This trend is something totally missing in the West.
In Israel, which is a great hub for entrepreneurship – the second-largest after the US in LifeSciences, people are drafted into the army and when they are released they have a whole world of opportunity lying out there in open. In the US, it is not uncommon for people to do MBBS after their engineering just because they had a change of heart.
In India, is it even imaginable? We are urged to finish off our education in one go. School –> College —> MBA —> Job. Why not an year or two of job before MBA? If I enroll myself in an MBA school in the US now, I probably would belong to the youngest bracket of my class. Why is it that if someone fails CAT, his life is ruined because his friend has made through and will be earning his 24 lacs for one extra year?
Take our own example, when we, Rajat and I, had wanted to chuck our calls, we were under pressure to reconsider and do our MBA first. The reasoning was that a diploma from IIMs is a safety net in case we failed. Only one or two thought about mentioning the fact that it might help us better understand business nuances. It just reflects the mindset of people around us.
So all I am saying is that it is not just the investor and regulatory environment, which is to be blamed here. We ourselves are a part of the problem. India once had a flourishing trade and was one of the richest countries in the world. Over 150 years of foreign rule has culled our spirit of entrepreneurship, which was followed by the so-called “Hindu” rate of growth. It is the 21st century now, and we have come a long way. We are roaring to go forward.
Let us not replace the Civil Services and Government jobs of erstwhile India with private high-paying safety nets. Let us instead shape our destiny with our own hands and bring a change from within before we lament the lack of innovation in India.
So the next time if someone compares you to Amazon and says – “You are the Amazon of India”, then your answer should better be “Patience my friend, you have seen nothing yet!”
Hi. I am a long time reader. I wanted to say that I like your blog and the layout.
Peter Quinn
“Over 150 years of foreign rule has culled our spirit of entrepreneurship” – Perhaps your blame is misplaced. While it’s true that the British Raj destroyed institutions, enduring emblems of business & prosperity in our erstwhile rich landmass (remember we were never a bordered state spare an effort by the Mauryas), it can be equally argued that the post-independence economic doctrine adopted by our great socialist leaders led us to this quagmire.
The best hope of a good life for our ancestors in pre-liberalized India was to get a government job, bribe their way into a licensed private player’s office or simply take a hike (read: emigrate). Our population survived joblessness, famines, expensive self-congratulating space missions to reach where we have. This couldn’t have been possible if not for the enterprising millions who with their ingenuity amidst much death and hopelessness. Innovation is not in the pysche of a nation, its evinced by the zeitgeist. If not for such abject prospects, we wouldn’t have our parents goading children to take up engineering, MBAs or what have you.
Your assertion that the civil services and government jobs should be retained to deter private jobs is a non-sequitur and downright dangerous. You hope that government jobs in lieu of private equivalents will somehow coerce the gold-diggers to take a dig at entrepreneurship. Fat chance! Who are incentivized? The pitifully small number of IIM MBAs? You are inadvertently denying opportunities to millions at finding themselves a plush job.
You optimism, however, is well-grounded. The past 20 years have ushered in growth previously unseen in our young nation. We are now poised to showcase our skills as innovators driving growth in the 21st century. But a vast swathe of our our population peddles with matters of subsistence. Unless we unlock the their power by unloading the quashing arm of the state, tipping off our competitors about the coming tide of Indian entrepreneurs would be presumptuous.
@Naresh
Naresh, I am not just blaming the British. The 50 years that followed further battered our spirit, when our leaders adopted a mixed approach trying to balance socialism with capitalism eventually leading to a License Raj.
Secondly, in my opinion innovation can breed out of desperation/limitations (our so-called juggad) or out of free-will. The basis of my argument rests on the latter and not the former!
Further, we have a herd mentality. Initially people aspired for a government job and now for a corporate job. I am not asserting which is better than which. Both are equally important for the proper functioning of the society. All I am saying is that if you are aspire and dream let not your parents and family and friends talk you into these safety nets! Even today, I met an old friend after years and he expressed a lot of surprise when I told him I have started up and not taken a job.
And finally, it is not being presumptuous, it is confidence in myself and my dreams. Amazon is great but it is not the best. They have a hell lot of scope of improvement. So what if I aspire to take on Amazon and fail? At least I tried!
Besides, I don’t think Vikas is suggesting that we replace corporate jobs with the Civil Service. We Indians are accustomed to a stepping stone that provides us with a secured life. An MBA or a professional degree does that, just like entry into the Civil Services for our previous generation. Instead of blindly getting a degree because it is the safe option, we should take the time to find where our passion lies and pursue it.
@Vikas I read your Amazon note in the original essay as it were addressed in the second person. This led me to understand that “you” was grossly scaled to all entrepreneurs. I’m a fan of your venture and my best wishes always remain with you.
@Sanjana I never accuse Vikas of suggesting replacement of corporate jobs with state patronized ones. I instead point out that retaining (“not replacing” in Vikas’ words) gvt jobs is a knee-jerk suggestion which has dangerous consequences.
A few questions to ponder for the both of you:
* Aren’t government jobs safety-nets? The precedent of smart IAS-officers turning venal and inefficient is overwhelming.
* Is a safety-net necessarily bad? Isn’t it actually encouraging entrepreneurship? An aspiring entrepreneur always has a shot at a reasonable life in the face of business failure. Maybe it’ll spur him on to take greater risks.
* Can’t a passion be pursued in an established business by an individual as an employee? My experience tells me that the most enterprising, passionate people excel in jobs.
Disclosure: I’m a wannabe entrepreneur myself. I’ve quit my job without an MBA and would have loved any ‘safety-net’. And I strongly believe that our current system of government subsidized education was the contributer-in-chief to the dearth of innovation (or positively correlated number of startups) in our nation.
Hi..liked the article. liked comments even more. great going guys. even better is “Patience my friend, you have seen nothing yet!”
@Naresh: The main point that I wish to assert is that if you are passionate about anything then go ahead and do it, be it in a job or in your own startup. We already know about people working passionately in Google and Amazon in India. So it’s only the latter, which needs to be taken care of now.
@chaman: thanks mate!!
well …my friends..i don’t read much, but this one’s the reality…and that too put into words very well..
thanks for sharing the thought..!