Nadella as Microsoft CEO: A slap in the face for Indian system

http://www.firstpost.com/india/nadella-as-microsoft-ceo-a-slap-in-the-face-for-indian-system-1374951.html

by ghosh • 12 years ago

178 152 12 years ago

firstpost.com

andyjohnson0• 12 years ago

Since it isn't explained in the article:

IIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology

IIM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Management

dhaneshnm3• 12 years ago

It is interesting that, Nadella is from Manipal Institute and not a product of "elite" IIT/IIM system. It is rare to see an Indian born techie, doing well abroad, not from the IIT/IIM system.

middleclick• 12 years ago

Another exception to this is Shantanu Narayen (Adobe CEO) who is not from IIT/IIM.

e15ctr0n• 12 years ago

Sanjay Jha, former CEO of Motorola Mobility and current CEO of GlobalFoundries, is also not from IIT/IIM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjay_Jha

kamaal4• 12 years ago

> It is rare to see an Indian born techie, doing well abroad, not from the IIT/IIM system.

That's just plain untrue. The problem is IIT alumnus works double time to do their marketing. The IIT entrance exams are super difficult to ensure only the most hard working of all India gets through. This inturn creates a situation where you have all that good people at one place. Its but other wise obvious they do well.

But to say the ordinary Indian doesn't do well is plain wrong. Today's India was built by ordinary guys. The IIT'ians well most of them contribute to the growth of countries like US, not India.

_nedR• 12 years ago

"99 percent of Indian aspirants to get admissions even to an IIT or IIM, but it is far simpler to get into an Ivy League institution. If you don’t get into an IIM, you try Harvard."

It is not all that hard to get into an IIM these days actually. IIT is definitely hard at the Undergraduate level (and harder than any US institution) primarily due to the sheer number of students trying to get in. The coursework is also pretty tough. Vinod Khosla( a co-founder of Sun Microsystems) said that after doing his undergrad in IIT Delhi, higher studies in Carnegie Mellon and Stanford were just a cakewalk.

r0h1n• 12 years ago

It is not all that hard to get into an IIM these days actually.

Last year 1,73,735 candidates took the CAT admission test through which the IIMs admit 3,335 MBA students. That's a 1:52 ratio.

Now you could argue that not everyone who takes the CAT is an IIM applicant. So let's take IIM Ahmedabad's (slightly dated) data for 2006-08 admission [1]. Of the 1,44,027 who applied to the institute, 273 secured an admission. That's a 1:527 ratio.

Harvard Business School's admissions:applications ratio is 1:12 [2]

I'm sure you have an explanation of why a 1:527 ratio is "not that hard".

[0] http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/boys-rul... [1] http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/institute/about/key-facts/institu... [2] http://www.hbs.edu/about/facts-and-figures/Pages/mba-statist...

mhurron• 12 years ago

“We are all human beings, and our nationality is simply an accident of birth.”

This is my position on the Olympics and basically all national pride. It has nothing to do with anything, there is nothing to be proud of.

No one cares when I think it, it's nice to see others say it.

nodata2• 12 years ago

I understand your point, but for the olympics in particular you are saying something different: that someone's training and environment and opportunities in a particular country are meaningless.

falcolas• 12 years ago

Given how many Olympians abandon the country they represent to train, it is somewhat meaningless.

Seriously, if there's one thing I've learned from watching the Olympics, it's that many of the successful ones are enabled by their ability to move away from their place of birth, well, that and good genetics.

pratkar• 12 years ago

George Carlin eh?

shrikant• 12 years ago

I strongly agree with this. Nationalist pride is the Kool-Aid peddled by government and society to get you to conform to their respective agendas and keep you from questioning the stupid shit they get up to.

And I really don't mean to come off as a pothead going "It's all a giant conspiracy man!"...

dopamean• 12 years ago

You guys take this way too seriously.

VexXtreme4• 12 years ago

Seconded. Nationalism is just outdated tribalism that requires you to put your societal overlords' agendas above your own. When they call for you to go to war and kill your brothers and sisters from different places, you do it. When they ask you to give them the fruits of your labor so they can fund their war games and send your children to die in trenches while shifting wealth from the poor to the already wealthy, you do it. They feed you intellectual manure and try to appeal to your monkey brain to accept them as your tribal leaders and unconditionally pledge your allegiance to them and their purposes. And if you're big enough a fool, you do it (most people are).

Nationalism needs to go. There is absolutely nothing honorable in it. It just creates an artificial divide between the peoples of this planet. It all stems from a time when tribalism was needed to survive, and as it happens, evolution optimizes for local problems on the evolutionary curve and some of these features never go away.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying we shouldn't cherish our cultural differences. On the contrary, I believe diversity is a wonderful thing and I find it fascinating that nearly every group of people out there has devised their own ways of communication, worship etc. Just don't let that devolve into "we are better than them", as it usually happens.

JTon• 12 years ago

Nationalism doesn't make sense when a nation's citizens feel powerless to shape the nation. But if a nation's citizens, through actions and decisions unique to their nation, feel like they are building a better place to live... what's wrong with being proud about it? Just the other side of the coin. I think striking a balance is optimal

exo762• 12 years ago

I think that this is not about national pride or nationality. OP is lamenting about lack of opportunities that all Indians face in their country. It's about improvement of quality of live of 1.x billions of people.

JoeAltmaier4• 12 years ago

Culture is the largest difference between people. We are the animal that can (re)program itself. Nationality correlates to culture greatly.

So there is still plenty of difference between peoples of the world. Its silly to ignore this.

mildtrepidation• 12 years ago

No one is suggesting culture should be ignored. It's pride that's the problem. Did you do something to earn your nationality?

Culture in itself is an important difference that makes people a lot more interesting to each other. But the examples given are not the same kind of difference: Olympic swimmers aren't expressing their culture. They're all, by rule, doing exactly the same thing. That the one from your nation does it the best says nothing about your culture, and there's no rational reason that swimmer or you should feel some sort of pride about that.

Spearchucker• 12 years ago

Culture is not being ignored. Wars are fought over it. Human rights unfortunately are being ignored, and that's partly a result of nationalism.

jordan0day• 12 years ago

I found it interesting that the article called a position like that "downright rude".

Demiurge7• 12 years ago

That's a lot like saying, you could be born to any mother. It is simply an accident of birth, who is your mother. Does it mean you shouldn't love your mother, your family, and you don't owe your family for their love and bringing you up?

burntfingers• 12 years ago

With respect, it's much easier to make this argument [that you are indebted to your mother] if you are privileged to be born to a good mother who loves you and brings you up well.

nathan_long• 12 years ago

A great analogy. I love my family because they are my family, and I love my country because it is my country. That doesn't mean I should think that either is objectively the best, or turn a blind eye to their faults, or treat others unfairly to favor them.

I love my family and country because they are mine, they helped make me, and my memories are with them. Which helps me understand why Brits and Egyptians and Chinese, etc, love theirs.

I think good patriotism makes us sympathetic to outsiders rather than the opposite.

Lewton• 12 years ago

You should not love your mother just because she's your mother, you should love your mother because she loved you and did her best to raise you well

And if she did neither she -deserves- no love

Keyword being deserves, of course you can love a bad mother

I don't see why different rules should apply to a mother who gave birth compared to one who adopted

Killah9112• 12 years ago

By that logic you should should really love the hospital you were born in. After all, it was more involved in bringing you into the world than the ground it was built upon.

The whole notion of "my country" is really interesting... If you were swiss, but born and raised in India, does India become "your country" or not?

The media in Subcontinent area feeds loads of BS about nationalism to the point that you start to believe it and start to thing it's true. Even the Indian national anthem's first verse is India is better than the whole world. Perhaps upon leaving India people realize common threads of humanity that bind communities together.

With the advent of the internet hopefully more people are learning this without having to leave a country as people work in multi national teams remotely. The people I interact with are very every day are in India, UK, Bosnia etc. We work on the same thing together. There are accents and cultural differences, but a lot of what we assume about people we haven't met dissolve in the face of realities which challenge your biased views.

The internet in some way has helped dilute the power of national boundaries. You find clusters like HN where people of all background come together and interacts based on commonalities that transcend mere physical attributes of our existence. While I agree that the physical attributes are still important, nationalism is not a physical attribute, it one imposed by some a-hole who wanted to draw lines and have power.

Love your mother, your family and the hospital that you were born in. (If you were born in a barn, said love should go to barn). Destroy those to dare assert superiority over those who were born in your particular hospital/field/barn etc. If that sounds ridiculous, please thing about how some other arbitrary inanimate object in place of hospital/field/barn makes more sense.

macspoofing• 12 years ago

This is my position on the Olympics and basically all national pride.

I don't disagree but I think pageantry and even national or ethnic pride have a place. I like St. Paddy's day, Robbie Burns parties, cheering for my local sports teams, putting up douchey flags on my car when my team wins a game at the World Cup, etc.

At the end of the day, nothing really matters anyway.

vvvVVVvvv2• 12 years ago

Ireland won anything lately ?

leobelle• 12 years ago

I get the gist of what you're saying, but the reality of it is that nationality matters a great deal. It's part of our identity whether you realize it or not. As many immigrants know too well national identity isn't as arbitrary as it seems. It isn't just the exclusion you will face in your new home, there's a strong internal compass that will always point home for many people. It's part of who we are, and a great deal of people have worked hard and sacrificed much for the sake of their country. This picture becomes clearer with age and experience. I celebrate diversity in its many forms. I like new ideas, learning new and different old ways of thinking and doing, but I also know where I come from, and that's as valuable as appreciating others. Maybe even more so.

Joeri• 12 years ago

Nationality is not part of an identity, but nationalism is. I mean that there is no single characteristic which applies to all americans, so obviously there is no part of the 'american' identity which derives from being an american national. However, there is an assignment of values that occurs in people's minds of their particular subculture to 'american' identity.

Identity is too complex a phenomenon to boil it down to such simplistic notions as nationality or political party. Nationalism cannot express a 'whole' identity, and therefore always forces people to ascribe to philosophies which left to their own devices they would not have supported. And that is how we get wars. Thz nation-state is the modern version of the regional tribe, and tribal culture is what causes wars. In that sense, there is no instrument more damaging to human rights than the nation state.

smoyer2• 12 years ago

Hmmm ... it is an accident of birth but I also love my country (at least the principles we espouse). At the same time I'm dismayed by how my government is run on a day-to-day (year-to-year?) basis. So national pride is simply a feeling you have or you don't.

Nobel prizes and Olympic medals on the other hand are some combination of nurture versus nature, and while the “We are all human beings, and our nationality is simply an accident of birth.” quote is factually true, people making that statement should (in theory) have a long list of people who helped them on their way to achieving that dream. Nations which encourage certain behaviors can have an impact.

gnerd• 12 years ago

George Orwell wrote my favourite piece on this issue in his essay, Notes on Nationalism[1].

[1] http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat

VikingCoder• 12 years ago

People shouldn't feel proud of where they were born. They should work to feel proud of the government they have.

If your country is decent and just, addresses the needs of the poor and sick, welcomes people of different cultures, etc., and especially if you play an active role in improving your government, there's reason to be proud.

If you vote "no taxes," don't volunteer, don't donate, and wave a flag, then you suck.

rayiner• 12 years ago

Race and ethnicity is an accident of birth. Nationality is shared culture, values, beliefs, and institutions. I spent the first five years of my life in Thailand and Bangladesh. My parents spent the first forty of theirs in Bangladesh. My ethnicity is fixed by that. But when we came to the U.S., we happily embraced the culture and values of the country. And having been in a position to compare them, I think it's foolish to say those have nothing to do with anything and are nothing to be proud of.

Why do Indians and other people from the subcontinent thrive more often in America than in their home countries? Because nationality does matter. Because while you can hold whatever beliefs and attitudes you want, your personal success and ability to achieve depends on the prevailing culture. The culture of your school work place, teachers, friends, potential employees, government. And American culture and institutions are conducive to success in a way success in ways Indian culture and institutions aren't. And that's something to be proud of. That's not something that arises passively. That's some thing we work together to build and nurture. That's something people fought for. The people who struggled to fight racism and sexism or corruption or lack of education, or the numerous other scourges still deeply ingrained in India, contributed something lasting to our culture, something that continues to accrue benefits to people who live here and adopt our ways.

VexXtreme4• 12 years ago

It's one thing to recognize your civilizational and societal achievements as good, useful and constructive and therefore love them and cherish them. Nothing wrong with positive self evaluation. Whoever sees a problem with that is an anti-intellectual.

However, for most people national pride is something that manifests as "we are better than them" and allows them to engage in all kinds of atrocities against other people because "they're outsiders/they're not us". It's very easy to justify all kinds of things when you adopt "us vs them" mentality.

Gotta be careful. Since most people can't be counted on to be well behaved and not let their pride devolve into justifications for colonization/genocide/ethnic violence, it's best to keep those feelings down to a minimum.

dharmach• 12 years ago

Though one's nationality may be an accident and one can understand the futility of the pride, how can one ignore the way world treats people based on their nationality?

talmand• 12 years ago

I agree, based on my experience many of the people who downplay nationality as something significant are among the first to judge an entire group based on nothing but nationality.

Aloisius2• 12 years ago

Ethnicity is an accident of birth. Nationality can be chosen.

Indeed it was chosen by Nobel laureate who made the quote.

dpeck• 12 years ago

Nationality can be chosen by people like Nobel Laureates who can move anywhere, for most people they're more or less stuck where they started unless they get lucky in a lottery

coldtea2• 12 years ago

“We are all human beings, and our nationality is simply an accident of birth.”

Well, this is obviously wrong.

Birth is not just a random momentary thing. It involves your parents. And they already had a nationality too. You couldn't have been born by any two random other people and still be the same person (DNA, childhood raising, education, food, native language, et al).

Second, you is not your birth only. It's also your upbringing, the culture you grew up in, the state/legal/etc environment you were raise, the language you spoke, the cuisine you were raised with, heck, even the national TV channels you were watching while growing up.

Would anybody dare to say the same thing to a black person? Nah, your culture and stuff is nothing, you could just as well be white? He'd be totally right to tell you to fuck off, for he has lived his culture (including bad treatment by white folks) all his life -- he knows that he being black wasn't just some "accident of birth", but an identity. Even a kid grewing up in Brooklyn by European Jews owes a lot to both Brooklyn and to him descending from European Jews (just ask Woody Allen).

It's also a potentially harmful way to see things. It's basically just an excuse to feel independent and non-connected and owning solidarity to anyone. Home country in danger? "Fuck it, I'll just flee. After all, it's only me, me, me that matters".

(You can feel solidarity for other nationalities and countries while also feeling pride and solidarity for your own people. Feeling solidarity for other people when you don't even care about your own is a little more difficult, despite those people paying lip service to "we're all one").

chrisrogers• 12 years ago

Identity in total is obviously more gray than the one sentence can provide, but its sentiment is important. And that's all it obviously is -- sentiment -- not a statement of fact.

The world is an awfully large place, but its cultures are more widely distributed than ever before. Therefore a citizen has much better opportunity to form a morality or philosophy that is independent of the place they live. That is the sentiment, free and able to join your other points of cultural context.

mindcrime• 12 years ago

Well, this is obviously wrong.

Well, despite how obvious it is to you, you totally failed to convince me.

Home country in danger? "Fuck it, I'll just flee. After all, it's only me, me, me that matters"

Yes, and? Nationalism is the problem, not the solution. Oh, I understand the reasons articulated by the evolutionary psychologists for why humans are cliquish and tribal, and that all makes perfect sense. But we have the capacity for logic and higher order reasoning and we can transcend primal instincts like that if we want. And I think we should.

castis• 12 years ago

You can write all you want, but outright nullifying someones argument with "Well, this is obviously wrong." immediately inspires resentment and you've already lost their interest.

mattlutze• 12 years ago

"It's basically just an excuse to feel independent and non-connected and owning solidarity to anyone."

This is particularly important. In a growing culture of "independent connectedness" it is so very easy to forget both the historical importance of a community on the individual, as well as reduce the individual's compulsion to benevolence toward members of that society.

Our communities are in part a reflection of our national consciousness, and we'd do well to remember that we are a part of those communities.

BlackDeath34• 12 years ago

It seems to me that the truth of this matter lies somewhere in the middle (as with most things).

Is your nationality meaningless? Certainly not, for reasons as coldtea has pointed out above. Though a person's birth could have happened anywhere (assuming, for a moment, that the parents had the mobility to settle anywhere they chose), the fact is that it did not happen anywhere. It happened where it happened. While I have much empathy for those who would deny nationalism in any way, shape, and form, it really cannot be overlooked so simply. As much as I try to be this objective, unbiased, rational being, I realize that my birthplace and culture has certainly affected me whether I'd like to admit it or not.

On the other hand, rabid nationalism remains meaningless to me. I see no reason to war against others in the name of my country, and I see no reason to prefer those with nationalities in-line with mine to others. If an Indian Nobel prize winner decides to turn his back on those parasitic "countrymen" who attempt to latch themselves onto him and bask in his reflected glory for no reason other than "you're Indian, I'm Indian", I support him all the way.

VexXtreme4• 12 years ago

It's also a potentially harmful way to see things. It's basically just an excuse to feel independent and non-connected and owning solidarity to anyone. Home country in danger? "Fuck it, I'll just flee. After all, it's only me, me, me that matters".

What's wrong with that mindset? The way I see it, a rational actor would be inclined to think like that. I am an expat living halfway around the world and I have virtually zero sense of national identity. I am loyal to whatever place is aligned with my personal interests the most. When the place where I live stops serving my interests as an individual, I will go elsewhere. I give back to the community by working here, paying taxes and being a productive member of the society. Is there something wrong or dishonorable with that approach? Why shouldn't we be allowed to dynamically choose and reevaluate where we want to live throughout our lifetime?

The moment you ask me to die for you simply because we are from the same town/city/country, you are crossing into irrational territory and losing me right there and then. The only thing worth dying for is a good cause (so you'd better have one ready), and most of the time, wars started by nation-states are rooted in anything but good causes.

Convince me I'm wrong.

Tycho• 12 years ago

I find the Olympics unbelievably tedious. It's just physical trials. Wanting your country to win is fine as long as you don't take it too seriously.

jl6• 12 years ago

If you feel pride because of the achievements of your compatriots, you should also feel shame because of their crimes.

I guess some people are happy to accept that shame if it means they can share in the pride too. But I suspect most people who feel proud of their country would wash their hands of the shame by saying the crimes were nothing to do with them. Fairweather collectivists!

enscr3• 12 years ago

I agree. I think the next phase of evolution should involve transcending international boundaries and working as a planet rather than as a nation.

medius• 12 years ago

I feel the same way about patriotism. It is a sentiment that has served its purpose and it's time to move on.

quchen• 12 years ago

Statistically, it compares the single case of Nadella to the statistical blob of people that is the "Indian system". Tough comparison when there are a billion of Indians, and the other dozen examples given don't change that.

Politically, it calls the US not being nationalist (or at least hostile towards Indians in particular) in this case a "slap in the face".

Just no.

moron4hire3• 12 years ago

My feeling exactly. The idea that one man's decision to live and work in another country besmirches his originally country decades later when he finds great success is itself the real insult here.

couchand3• 12 years ago

That may be the headline but there's a lot more nuance. One of the stronger points made is that no Indian-born Nobel laureate is an Indian citizen.

CmonDev2• 12 years ago

There is an implicit assumption that he was chosen because he is brilliant. Shouldn't we wait for a couple of months at least?

parag_c_mehta• 12 years ago

Irrespective of his performance as CEO, his past performance has been brilliant, otherwise MSFT wouldn't have promoted him to vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. The point raised in article is still valid. I am from India and I know we don't value time, become lazy in our own country. However we become punctual and productive in western countries. Strange but true.

moron4hire3• 12 years ago

that's not so much an Indian thing as it is a not-America, and more specifically not-east-coast-America, thing. Of all the places I have traveled[1], there are few people who are as work oriented, punctual, and surly if you are not, then mid-Atlantic region Americans.

Take that for whatever you want. It can be a problem if you are just trying to have a weekend. We don't know how to leave work at work most of the time. But I very much appreciate being serious and focusing on work during regular work hours. one of those big factors that makes most of the places I travel to "nice to visit, but wouldn't want to live there".

[1] and granted I haven't traveled every where. I understand Japanese salesmen are like this, too.

kamakazizuru2• 12 years ago

usually CXO level people ARE chosen because they have displayed a modicum of brilliance at something... It isn't exactly a lottery system. Plus - you can already look at what he's done with the Azure platform.

CmonDev2• 12 years ago

That makes another assumption that everything is being done in company's best interests, not individual people's interests. A lot of brilliant people has been let go because they had a conflicting vision. Is being more conservative a sign of brilliance? Also Azure is run by Scott Guthrie, but it could also be attributed to Steve Ballmer since he was the CEO when it started.

Iftheshoefits• 12 years ago

It isn't exactly a lottery system, but it is very heavily influenced by one's network, and "life's lottery" rules apply to that at least as much as a person's own efforts. The Tech world is emphatically not the meritocracy some think it is.

finishingmove• 12 years ago

A slap in the face indeed, but not in the way it's presented. I admire the Indian people, and what prompted me to respond here were the comments below that article more than the article itself.

They were what I expected to find, "We are pathetic, we are whiners, we are losers.". I used to think the same about my country. Until I realized that decades and centuries of exploitation at the hands of malicious outside forces are what brought us to it. And then it became obvious it was not our fault.

I suggest reading "Das Kapital" or even "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism". Hopefully it will help you realize why and how are other nations collecting your intellectual and other assets.

marcosdumay• 12 years ago

Well, unless there are other countries literally wiling to invade yours if you don't let them exploit you, that exploitation is your (colective) fault, and your people are the ones capable of stopping it. If that's the case, just accept that it's up to you to make a better place, and act acordingly.

Now, if there are other countries with guns pointed your way, well, people from India can tell you better about that than I can.

jff• 12 years ago

Yeah that sounds about right for a Marxist: "It's all those evil OTHER PEOPLE's fault that we suck! Trust us, it'll be a lot better after the revolution"

argumentum• 12 years ago

The biggest mistake here is assuming these people wouldn't succeed in India or anywhere else. The IIT & IIM people move here to the US because they are an approximation of "the best" in India. Others come as well, the best doctors have nothing to do with IIT and IIM obviously.

The best people are going to succeed nearly anywhere. Obviously Nazi Germany is an exception w/regards to the Jews & others they targeted. But, in my opinion, this actually strengthens the argument .. you literally have to kill the best people if you want them to fail.

Of course, the best people also realize they are likely to succeed more in the best places. The USA has been the prime beneficiary throughout history ..

ben336• 12 years ago

Obviously Nazi Germany is an exception

Thats the only exception you can think of?

The USA has been the prime beneficiary throughout history

For values of history starting later than the late 1700s :)

dhaneshnm3• 12 years ago

"If Satya Nadella had remained in India,he would probably be working as a coder in Infosys or TCS. Earning a high salary no doubt, but an unlikely candidate for CEO"

TCS(Tata Consultancy Services) CEOs, current or past, were not from IITs.

pritambaral• 12 years ago

Not sure I get your point, but Nadella isn't from the IITs

gnufied• 12 years ago

I think what he is implying is, Nadella had a good chance of becoming CEO of TCS and not mere coder as the picture the article is trying to paint.

Afterall current CEO of TCS is from NIT Tricy who was hired straight from campus and rose all the way to CEO position.

kamaal4• 12 years ago

Are you serious?

Nandan Nilekani was hired at Infosys as a programmer. He ultimately went on to become the CEO.

dhaneshnm3• 12 years ago

The line in quotes is from the article. I was trying to counter it by citing TCS CEOs were not IITians. I should have made it more explicit.

balladeer• 12 years ago

The short point: our system is designed to keep people out, not get them in. The true value of an IIT or IIM is not the intellectual capital they produce, but their filtering expertise

This is almost holistically true in case of those institutes mentioned or the elk. Even their testing methods lack any kind of innovative or creative examination. It's based purely on rote.

smoyer2• 12 years ago

Harsh ... I know that the bureaucracy you describe is well-entrenched (and I guess has to be dealt with by the "business guy" in a start-up), but what how can an Indian software start-up ignore that heritage to get a leg up?

mirmali• 12 years ago

This is a typical 'Election Cycle' article that you will see in Indian Media these days. Do not fall for anything that the author says. If you read past the first two paragraphs you will notice a distinct theme; supporting a particular political party while dissing the current political power in India.

mastersk3• 12 years ago

Time and time again I wonder if i should laugh at the absurdity of such articles this or worry about the excessive, obsessive usage of the word Indian.

sremani• 12 years ago

Indian - the closest thing to that word is European. We do not speak the same language, eat the same food, our culture is as diverse as that of Europe - but the fake homogeneity the word Indian brings bother me a lot.

Spooky23• 12 years ago

The article makes a good point, but people like symbols -- they help to compress the complexities of life and make the bigger point.

The idea that someone like you -- either nationally, ethnically or by some other characteristic can achieve something so big can be inspirational. That's a good thing.

Just to put it in a personal perspective, when my grandmother learned about my first big promotion as a "bigshot computer guy", it brought her to tears. To her, it was reinforcement that our family had "made it". She originally came from an agricultural background -- to her, I was a superstar. Kids in India now have another source of inspiration. Not a bad thing.

marshally• 12 years ago

The headline is inflammatory linkbait.

The article context is thoughtful, introspective, and focused mainly on what India could change internally to be more inclusive and help give people a leg up.

It is disappointing that the headline is drawing the online discussion away from the meat of the article.

But such is linkbait.

mkartic• 12 years ago

Comparing IIT/IIM entrance exams to caste system is a very cheap shot. IITs are no more exclusionists than Harvard or MIT. Its the country's premier place for education, so everyone is going to want to study there.

gohrt• 12 years ago

I, for one, believe that Harvard/MIT/Stanford have a habit of "picking winners" not in line with egalitarian meritocracy (promoting those willing and able to learn), a system for "converting privilege to credentials" as is said -- witness the bias in tech company hiring practices, and the classic "management consulting" culture, where CEOs and government leaders higher newly-minted Ivy grads to rubber-stamp the leader's choices and provide cover for their decisions.

hga• 12 years ago

I'm not at all familiar with Stanford's admissions system, but lumping in MIT's with the official Ivies is bogus.

MIT does no legacy admits, because the core curriculum required of all students is so much harder, e.g. lots of calculus and physics, vs. Harvard in the '80s requiring you to prove you can do algebra. So MIT doesn't admit anyone they don't think can "do the work". although if you make that cut I'm sure it doesn't hurt to be the child of an alum, but it didn't come up all that often in the '80s at least.

MIT specifically looks for evidence that applicants can do projects. Beyond that, as far as I can remember they're pretty generic in trying to construct a class (trying since yield, acceptances of admission offers, is very hard to predict), favoring the things every high end college looks for such as geographic diversity (both of those helped me a lot).

So the very first thing strongly aligns with the school's goal of overall being an "egalitarian meritocracy"; what you do and can do is where it's at. MIT students do not as a rule aspire to be lower tier corporate yes-men.

kamaal4• 12 years ago

>Comparing IIT/IIM entrance exams to caste system is a very cheap shot.

Why?

Caste system survived because an exclusivity principle was employed to keep the lower caste's out of systems which could benefit them on the longer run like education, employment, religious institutions.

wil421• 12 years ago

Fix government corruption and the countries infrastructure and maybe people will start migrating to India instead of away.

donniezazen• 12 years ago

It reminds me of the article published a few days ago on why the author doesn't trade in stocks. The reason was following.

    "It's going to go up!"

I say same is true for India. India hasn't reached it's high yet.

thinkpad20• 12 years ago

I see a lot of parallels here with the Japanese system. Similarly, the system seems to encourage conformism and rote learning over disruptive ideas and innovation. Similarly, their top universities have phenomenally competitive admissions, even though they are not ranked particularly high internationally. Similarly, many of their systems are characterized by endless paperwork and bureaucracy.

Of course, there are certainly innumerable ways in which the two countries diverge. Japan has been economically far more successful in the last few centuries, and has a very respectable number of Nobel laureates, most of whom have remained in Japan. But I do think a lot of the criticism of India leveled here is applicable there.

(Source: I lived there for a few years and am reasonably culturally/linguistically fluent)

bane• 12 years ago

As an outsider, it looks like India is trying very hard to figure out a path to success. But, probably for historical reasons, it's looking for a path to a Western U.S./Britain model of success rather than East Asian Japan/South Korea/Singapore/Hong Kong model.

I don't know which makes more sense for India to look towards, but I wonder if a New Delhi that looks more like Seoul than London makes more sense and if modeling a future path on established paths to success and growth is a better idea. There may be more cultural similarities (for example, the social difficulties of coming out of deeply entrenched caste system, a deep respect for education, etc.) and adapting the same patterns for India's local conditions might work better

For example, building an export driven economy like Japan and Korea did, has resulted in unbelievable economic growth, advanced technology, and global respect. By and large those countries are also able to retain talent, build sufficient educational institutions to train that talent, have enough local economic opportunities for that talent to make money, and have a vibrant enough economy to allow them to spend that money locally.

It seems to me that many of the basic pieces are there for India to follow those models, and with a massive and cheap labor pool (one of the main requirements for this to work), make it happen.

vagarwa• 12 years ago

My view - The biggest difference is the underlying system (law, bureaucracy and even infrastructure)still being used in India is the one built to extract and export resources out as efficiently as possible. That's the legacy of 150 years of colonialism and Indians simply have never been able to do the challenging work (various reasons) of changing these but for a few word changes here and there. This is most stark in nation's civil and police services.

shortsightedsid2• 12 years ago

Don't quite agree; it's time we stop putting the colonial legacy as a reason. The reason? It's been 65 years since colonialism ended and that's enough time to fix things. A lot of things have been fixed too but the real problem is a huge population. It's trivial to fix things for 1 million people compared to the 1.2 billion people and that's the real problem; not colonial legacy.

grannyg00se• 12 years ago

Isn't this just a matter of being in the best environment for what you are trying to achieve? Is it a slap in the face to Canadian arts and culture every time an actor leaves and moves to LA? There are some realities involved and doing what's best for yourself shouldn't be interpreted as some personal attack against your culture. There should be no expectation that your country of origin would get preferential treatment when weighing the options.

couchand3• 12 years ago

I don't think the author is expecting any special treatment, but rather questioning why the local option seems so dead-end to so many young go-getters.

karunr• 12 years ago

I am a 1987 Manipal Institute of technology graduate. MIT Manipal may not be mentioned in the same breath as the IIT's but is (or used to be) in the top 100 engineering colleges in India. It is private and is much more expensive though I believe it was much more affordable to middle class families in the 1970s and 80s than it is today.

Beliavsky• 12 years ago

The article's criticism of IIT and IIM (elite Indian universities) could be made of the elite U.S. schools too:

"The short point: our system is designed to keep people out, not get them in. The true value of an IIT or IIM is not the intellectual capital they produce, but their filtering expertise – which keeps all but the superlisters out of these institutions. When the people entering the institution are the best among the best, they will shine no matter what the quality of faculty or the curriculum."

Guvante2• 12 years ago

Not to mention when it is that hard to get in it becomes difficult to really test your students.

Thus you end up with graduating from an Ivy League school basically meaning got into an Ivy League school.

random42• 12 years ago

What a content-less piece of link-bait fluff!

To me, the article boils down to..

1. Find a large system (India)

2. Find "issues" within the system (Brain drain in a densely populated country with limited resources, caste system, not being able to compete with first world countries in cutting edge research/capitalistic economy, people's deeply routed perspective etc.), all of which are non-trivial to fix.

Such non-trivial will exist in any "real" (not theoretical) large system. Wishing them away magically is kidding oneself.

3. Rant about them.

4. Do not provide either insights on why the issues exists OR the way forward to tackle them.

Pretty mediocre article, IMHO, which does what arm-chair critiques do best — criticism.

mhb• 12 years ago

Private Schooling In India: Results from a Randomized Trial:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/02/pri...

denzil_correa• 12 years ago

The issue is claiming credit for being "Indian" when it has been the US system that should be credited for the same. Sure, you can feel proud that an ordinary run of the mill guy from your country has reached this position but that's that.

berto99• 12 years ago

Respect Indians, however clean up the stupid cast system.

crusso• 12 years ago

While Indian newspapers were over the moon about Nadella’s elevation

Racism/nationalism fail #1.

mathattack• 12 years ago

I view this differently. He found a non-traditional way. He didn't go to IIT. He didn't go to the top engineering school in the US. He got his MBA part time. But he found a way.

I am very bullish on Nadella. He's not a lock to succeed, but he has a fighting chance, which is a lot more than I can say for most of the other candidates mentioned. (The CEO from Ford could probably run GE or 3M too, but the only thing he could do at Microsoft is dismantle it.)

staticfish• 12 years ago

Is it me, or does this situation reek of "damned if you do, and damned if you don't"?

amaks• 12 years ago

> While Indian newspapers were over the moon about Nadella’s elevation, with some justification, there is another side to the story we need to consider: why is it that India’s tech and other geniuses flower only in the US or Silicon Valley?

The assignment of Nadella to CEO role appears to be a very smart move from Microsoft board for many reasons:

1) He's not involved into scandalous business decisions as Elop 2) He's internal candidate and been in Microsoft for 22 years 3) He's Ballmer's man, and 4) Ballmer and Gates are still on Microsoft board, so no uncomfortable decisions and surprises for MS board from the new CEO. 5) He's Indian, which brings even more diversity to Microsoft LT.

Given all of the above, I doubt any drastic and revolutionary changes will happen at MS.

shortsightedsid2• 12 years ago

I seriously doubt #5 has anything to do with it. Considering that he has been in the U.S his entire Adult life (i.e old enough to make his own choices), one can characterize him as American rather than Indian.

jrmenon• 12 years ago

Interesting debate.....when I see the comments here, I am reminded of this most-probably a misunderstood book by Francis Fukuyama:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last...

It is a must-read esp. if you are inclined towards cultural determinism. IMO, he seems to persuasively argue against all that, and provide good counter-points on how people can change over time.

hammad999• 12 years ago

I'm an Indian, recently graduated from Bangalore and I cannot agree more with this post. I am fortunate enough to realize what to do in life and not follow the herd as almost every engineer does in India.

From among 60 electronics & communication engineers who graduated with me 40 are working for Infosys and wipro in IT departments! Why study Electronics if you want to end up coding? It's not like one thinks what she wants it's more like 'I just want to end up employed'. There is no question of passion. Students are forced to take up engineering or medicine. Parents don't give a fuck about the child's talents and all they care is his grades. It's sad and this should change.

TheMagicHorsey• 12 years ago

Patriotism and Nationalism, ever popular amongst morons and the cynical sociopaths that would manipulate them.

Nadella as Microsoft CEO: A slap in the face for Indian system

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