[Guest post by Vishal Gondal, Founder of IndiaGames. VIshal sold his major stake to Tom Online/later to UTV Software Communications, and recently launched a seed fund venture called Sweat And Blood Venture Group. This article by Vishal echoes the true sentiments of an Indian entrepreneur- so share your opinion.]
Why Wipro, Infosys and TCS are “The Axis of Evil” for Indian start-up space ?
Yes you read it right I am calling this trio and their thousands of offshoots “The Axis of Evil” for Indian Software and Start-up space. While it is well known how these companies started the IT revolution in India with an interesting business model “Body Shopping” and post US clamping on H1 visas “Offshore Outsourcing”. The Indian software outsourcing story started off as a great business of labour arbitrage has today left most of its players scrambling for margins and why?
Because of their own inefficiencies they have created a beast which is now unmanageable. Think about it – the Indian IT employee has got an average salary hike of about 20% year on year which means in the last decade salaries have gone up 5x and attrition is on a all time high. Which means after all the salary hike, free lunch, fancy office buildings and over-pampering of employees, keeping them on “bench” for years?
Axis of Evil
They have created a new breed of employees which I call the “OutBots“. These OutBots have been programmed not to think and blindly follow a process which is designed not to do a thing in a more efficient way but in a manner than the company can clock the most hours and bill the client without giving the client a feeling that he is taken for a ride.
Ask any of your friends in any of these companies and you would know how they have made an art “how many programmers do you need to replace a light bulb?”
Most of these companies run on a cost plus business model therefore as an investors what you see is that they are always making money and good margin – but you are missing what they have been loosing and the harm they are doing to the country by creating these “OutBots”.
Leaving few exceptions, most of the companies as part of “The Axis of Evil” are happy to build routers & software for large US based companies for a flat hourly rate but dont want to take a slightest amount of risk which could have transformed them into a “UT Starcom”, “Huawei” , “Lenovo” but are happy to remain outsourced partners to “Miscrosoft”, “Nokia” and “GE” who are making billions on the technology which is built by our “Outbots” .
So bad has been the impact on the start-up space that it is difficult for start-ups to hire quality employees as most prefer to be “Outbots” and for the few who do join are constantly lured by other “Outbots” for the referral amount paid by their companies to get more recruits. So bad is the situation that I once had an employee all of 23 years old come to me and said “he wanted to resign because he is putting 10 hrs a day at this job while his other friends are on bench, go to office play table tennis and make more money than him”. I had no words ..
I hope to start a debate on this important issue and would encourage everyone who wants to have the next Google and Facebook to come out of India to spread the word around and increase awareness amongst investors, entrepreneurs, students, shareholders and employees that how the “Outbots” will eventually self-destruct our software services industry and the only way out is to encourage Products, Innovation and fight “The Axis of Evil”.
Think about this – Venture Capital and Start-up investment in the software services space has dried up! Will the SENSEX and NASDAQ follow the same trend?
Share your opinion.
pic:mutantlog
Vishal: Awesome piece. My 22 yr old employees are unwilling to put in any extra hours because their pals in crapfy/crapCS/crapro just don’t have to work. It’s that simple.
Not higher pay. Not the perks. Not the food.
*Losers in these companies just don’t have to work*
Can any startup effing beat that ?
Shashank
I dont agree with your premise, these companies are not there to help the ecosystem or the start ups, it is unfair to blame their business model just because it does not help yours.
Will you blame a mass manufacturer of shoes because he does not help a boutique designer shoes to emerge or scale up ?
There is a fundamental economic inaccuracy in your argument, and it harks backs to a thinking which says help me, protect me I am doing start ups …which is great for the country so please everyone break your business model and help me !
dude china has now proven that doing products is a bigger service to the nation. open your eyes and stop talking about “fundamental economic inaccuracies”… english is not your product either. stupid.
@Shashank – Sorry, but you’re just ranting. Instead of competing with the likes of Infy, Wipro and TCS for talent, why not offer the talent something these big companies can’t? A more fun workplace. A vision of how these people will be part of something big.
What do I say? I’m already half-way through an article that might point to the root of all the evil
Awesome, still need details but we need to SERIOUSLY debate this, inject in to every others mind [ofcours in to becomming OutBots] . Even these companies deteriorated indian education system too, by making strict academic %age which makes aspiratns to go rote learning to somehow get in to job, mugging up the lab codes [not trying by themselvs], mugging up all the beautifull engineering subjects which will wipeout the moment you come out of exams.
These industry made many parents to think in to single pattern for their children.
“So bad is the situation that I once had an employee all of 23 years old come to me and said “he wanted to resign because he is putting 10 hrs a day at this job while his other friends are on bench, go to office play table tennis and make more money than him””: I am dam gurantee this guy will suffer later, in this intense tech compition if you didnt hone your skill you will remain in the crowd and hard to pick and for those who are constantly keeping pace with Tech they will stand on individual which is easier to pick and they prefer to join startups.
The words goes on an on an on never ends up.
Very well thought post.
Best post ever I guess, I read it now
Vishal: I agree with you on the effect these companies have on young guys – turning them into zombies. I personally have a view that no startup should hire a person who has spent more than 5 years on these offshore projects where the stress is more on company processes and less on technology or original thinking.
BUT, is this seen only in these companies? It is a defining characteristic of Indian society. Do our schools and colleges encourage original thinking? Is any out of the box thinking demonstrated by our politicians or other leaders? Are we basically open minded people? And in the absence of this evil axis, will our young guys stop taking up number crunching jobs in investment banks, flying off to US at the first opportunity? What I mean is there always will be easier options compared to the startup-life.
These companies built their business in a way that was probably the only way at that time. And now the stakes are too high for them to try anything different. Lets give them credit for what they accomplished – Lot of people live a better life and can afford to dream because of them.
So, no point blaming them. And in the end we need just a handful of misfits. We don’t need an army like Infy or TCS
Well said.
The problem we are discussing here is not just about the three companies listed above. Like the case of reservation we are targeting the wrong link. The process started way below. Right when a person is trying to figure out what he should opts for after 10th.
Most guys just listen to their parents or someone KNOWLEDGEABLE in there contact group. They choose science not because they wanted to (at least majority) but because everybody will say that science will make there life easy after graduation. No one listens to what matters the most – There Inner Voice. This process starts dominating as a person goes from one level to another level in his life journey. At college everyone will be riding one cool wave (iim / ibanks) or the other. A handful remains which will try different obvious things like higher study just for the sake of it. Still a handful will remains which will truly follow there heart (be it for job or higher studies). They are the one who don’t crib about the work timings / package etc. because they are there by choice and not chance.
So in the end startups are looking for choosers and not beggars. And in our society CHOOSERs are hard to find. Don’t point at the wrong direction because the damage has already been done long ago. What the top three are doing is just using the majority of the product of our society. They haven’t produce this society, they are the product of this society. And like every ecosystem whose members influences its behavior, they are changing it. Bad news for startups.
Top three – Wipro, TCS and Infy hire lets say 250000 software guys. How many does a startup need? 5? 10? For 100 good startups we need a 1000 good guys? It’s just 0.4% of the people undergoing brainwashing at those companies.
And if our society can’t produce even these 0.4%, the problem lies somewhere else than with the evil axis.
@Rohit,
agreed …
I also think it’s no use blaming the big three, they had a viable business model and they pursued it.(May be someone in China is saying exact opposite thing at this moment “Look at Wipro Infosys and their profit margins while our product companies keep on making losses .. !!”)
My perspective is, if we want to build startups and smart employees, what’s stopping us .. We surely have enough smart minds to build many cool products.
The real question for me would be are our startups building enough value to attract those smart minds? Or are our start-ups doing me-too businesses for which they expect employees to put inordinate amount of hours for absolutely no incentives just because they don’t want to be termed “outbots”?
i think you hit the nail right there – on the quality of startups itsef.
Honestly there is no incentive for an individual to slog since very few startups are doing some groundbreaking work
Good Point
As an employee he/she is going to work for somebody. So, most prospective candidates ask:
“Why should i work hard to make the entrepreneur rich? Give me a deal.Excite me with your idea.Make me a partner and give me a roadmap.I am ready to share the pain together”.
“Where are those original and exciting ideas for which i can put my career at risk?”
I have to agree that many people are pampered and waste their formative years in a big corporation.They do lack original thinking.
The solution doesn’t lie in calling them “outbots”.
Dear,you were a outbot too till you started your venture.Was it fine then?
I see this article as a outpouring of frustration at not being able to get the people to slog and nothing else.
These Giants keeps eating Startup’s food. That too recently TCS has slashed the billing to $15, which will again be a big blow to the startups.
They wrap their work in so called process, which sucks most of the money out and moreover working on a legacy system like mainframe in a maintanence phase is giving them that edge. Ofcourse they are innovative players, but it is getting saturated, we hear fireouts every where, the total cost invested in recruiting, training etc goes waste, rather than that, they can take quality people. Bulk recruitment must me banned, everyone gets in and at the end of it, everything is getting diluted. TCS takes 500 and Infosys takes another 540 to maintain its record, it is not a number game. The Bench strenght in TCS is 30% and that is the revenue for them, same with infosys and CTS.
Some thing should be done to monitor this quality, you cant keep doing everything under the cover of BRAND
Rohit: Agreed.
Another view: My company goes to local campuses for hiring smart fresh grads. Infy/TCS/etc get prime placement – hire 50% of the batch (10-20% never get placed – this is just a shrewd squatting strategy) – and leaves me with the bottom of the pile.
Colleges are reluctant to give us an entry before infy/tcs – because they commit numbers in excess of hundreds. That – even when our average offer is more than what infy has to offer.
Let this pity of an article set some context: http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63729
Mentality works wherever u go, more and more people love to work in startups in US, because they provide more enthusiasm. I see many people wanting to work for big brands in India, without even realizing their potential, losing time to waste time.
That’s where mentality comes in, Indian mentality is, bigger the company bigger my brand, hoots to that, I have been into IT for almost 9 years now and my resume does not hold any of these three, damn it does not even hold any of the top 100 companies in India, still I am living in US on a full time job only after being here for a year and a half.
For people to grow up in India they have to let go of the mindset that I have to work for Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Mphasis, Mastek, Tech Mahindra and so on, this is all bull crap and yes people judge other people based on which company they are.
Like a incident where we were a group of people and one of my friends asked which company are you from, he said “TCS”, my friend said, oh wow that is great. My question to the same person was, what do you do? He had no answer to it.
All I want to say is the work culture in India is different, people judge others based on the company they have worked for and not what they are, one of the recent examples was when I conducted a interview of a TCS guy who was a complete dud, but my manager being a old school thought guy who believed “bigger the company better the person” still recruited him, even after me saying straight forward not to do so.
And what now they are still paying him to do nothing, he is practically useless last I heard of, and that’s probably the last you will hear of me too.
And to those who would say that I am in US after 9 years in IT, let me point out I am only 25 years of age right now.
You sure are one brave guy out there and your resume is impressive even if it does not drop any big names.
What it does include is great adventure and the fun lies in it.
@Keith,
Would like you to be so bold about not having “big 3″ and being as happy as you are in US. It is not just the mentality of the Indian people living in India, it includes Indian people living outside India.
If you are so happy not to work for a “big” firm, why switch to US?
This article was about startups I thought, so how is you comment even valid??
Typical laid back attitude since you are not fighting for lively hood.
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This is where i have a strong disconnect – how many startups pay good esops? from what i have seen – most of the startup founders end up making huge money, but employees don’t (unlike a co. like Infy).
I agree with bhavin on this. The trust levels that can be placed with startup founders are low and their motivation to share the wealth very questionable. And Guys i know who are trustworthy indeed manage to form good teams.
It is true that infosys and guys are ruining the value creation ecosystem, but the startups arent helping it either. Be the change, and you will see it happening around you.
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While ur argument is right that, big companies make people brain dead. But a good hacker, can only be satisfied by good work. Good work also pays good money. But once they find all this BS quality work in these companies, they realise and either move or quit when they realise its probably be going to be the same elsewhere.
But sadly by the time they realise this, they are looking to get married(our society doesnt count unemployed enterpreneurs trying to make it as a good marriagable material). Once you are married, ppl buy house(you gotta worry about that mortgage payment now) and then kids and then its super hard.
Its still not prevalent, but its happening. The key to all these are only success stories. When I see some ex-teammate go and do a startup and make a decent fortune, I’ll have the inspiration to take the plunge. Its not that ppl are not inspired by themselves, but lot of ppl need success stories to get motivated, otherwise they worry about riskiness. They need to see live examples, that this risk is worthy afterall.
When think of India, outsourcing came to mind, it takes time to change that
Vishal,
Great post!
I have a few comments as someone who once worked at a very large investment bank and in the last 12 years has only been involved with startups.
The problem in India isn’t necessarily easily boiled down to INFY, WIT, and TCS creating a bad environment for startups. These companies were once startups and credit should be given to them for evolving their business models where they could grow to be the giants that they are. Every startup wants to grow up to be a giant.
The real problem, in my very humble opinion, is interwoven in the social fabric of modern day India. Go back 30 years and you will find a generation with integrity, honesty, and belief in hard work to achieve their dreams. Many of these folks left India for the US and have thrived on the creativity and risk taking mentality that permeates US culture, not to mention PRIDE in the people, culture, and country.
India as a whole has recently begun to shift from a country where people were considered to be smart, honest, and hard working to a country of lazy, unreliable, mindless drones. From your post, you attribute most of this shift to the “Axis of Evil”. However, I will present a controversial contrarian opinion.
I believe it is the fault of the parents/family that have instilled into their children a belief in MONEY as the most important achievement they should strive for. Money is no logner a by-product of hard work, ingenuity, integrity and ethics. Money, is instead the END goal that children are taught to strive for by their family. It is the decaying social fabric of Indian society that should be blamed, along with the defunct educational system that preaches memorization and rigidity rather than logical thinking, understanding and creativity. Students are punished for not memorizing their course work. They aren’t rewarded for doing something creative that deviates from the lesson plan set forth by the teachers/schools and to a large degree, the completely inept government.
Why is it that children that grew up as the first generation of Independent India have achieved so much. Whereas today, the lack of trust in our Indian brothers and sisters is so pervasive that every one wants to get paid first, work later.
There are many reasons why we cannot hire quality talent at a startup. However, let’s start with the “easiest” to tackle, teaching our children the right values from an early age so that they embrace challenges, diversity, and adversity. Perhaps, they will grow up and build the next Google, Boeing, Microsoft, Huawei, Lenovo, etc. not through contemporary Indian thinking but by falling back on the values and traditions of our forefathers.
Once we address the “way of thinking”, we can talk about why even startups that do offer stock and options to employees, usually get turned down in favor of cold hard cash.
Just my $.02
Ciao,
Pankaj
well said brother
There cannot be gains without pains and honesty and integrity of character are basic to it.
@Pankaj – I understand that this is your opinion, but you’ll have to back it up with some sort of statistics/research. While blaming the “Indian mentality” and “change in social values” is easy, backing this up with well researched facts is a different ball game altogether.
While I agree about the theory of “OutBots”, I don’t think this is too relevant to the startup industry.
My previous company is a product company with a tech strength of around 50 people. There, anyone working on these giant software services companies had a low chance of getting selected. Thats because a small product company cannot afford to have Outbots. Any Outbots that got hired couldn’t stay for long as they couldn’t handle the work pressure and responsibility.
Working on my own startup right now (mustseeindia.com), I don’t see these Outbots as either entrepreneurs or great hires. Hence the hiring process gets difficult as one needs more filtering.
Having said that, I disagree with the statement “So bad has been the impact on the start-up space that it is difficult for start-ups to hire quality employees as most prefer to be “Outbots” and for the few who do join are constantly lured by other “Outbots” for the referral amount paid by their companies to get more recruits. ”
I don’t think most people prefer to be Outbots. Hard working and passionate employees are always more successful than their Outbot counterparts. People who have passion to work and to excel with always do so, and people who are just working to pay the bills would always get to be an outbot in any organization, Infosys or no Infosys. That is the reason why most companies have a performace based appraisal system and people who perform better rise quicker at a very young age.
a part of this can also be blamed to startups – they dont share the esops with their employees. While its good to expect their employees to work hard/slog, why not share ‘some’ destiny too?
Have you ever come across any ‘employee’ who made it big because his company (to be more specific – startup) made it big?
I havent. Maybe Vishal can share some indiagames experience?
Bravo Bravo!
This was something that was just dying to be written about. I laud Vishal for bringing out the real picture without mincing a single word.
In defence of the young ‘uns, I am 23. The average age in my startup is 22. Dropouts, ppl who have rejected ‘OutBot’ jobs, angsty young blood fuels my startup. What drives us on a daily basis is that we are making our motherland proud by building something never done before, and cocking a snook at the so called ‘Doyens of Creativity’ – the white man. We tremble with indignation when the world treats India as cheap labour. Cost arbitrage? Nonsense.
How does it make any damn difference if we build a better back end for a bank in NYC or a hospital mgmt system for some European capitalistic swindler.
‘To uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India’ – is a fundamental duty for all of us as Indian citizens. Dont you think we are being subjugated by these ‘outsourcers’? We are sacrificing our creativity and independent thought, and have become ‘cheap labour’.
Bravo Vishal, I hope this post of yours inspires many more to wake up and seize the day. Carpe Diem ppl. Cheers.
hey vishal,
I may be the odd man out but…
1.
“Because of their own inefficiencies they have created a beast which is now unmanageable. Think about it – the Indian IT employee has got an average salary hike of about 20% year on year which means in the last decade salaries have gone up 5x and attrition is on a all time high”
As far as I know,salary in smaller cos is usually better than the big three.Before IT an engineer used to earn Rs 2500 when own of the co he used to work for in tousand multiples!
who spend close to 15 hrs(a day) at work and work for one of such cos but much smaller.
These service industries in that way have somewhat normalised the salaries of employess across the rank and file.Having said that the current period the hikes etc have more less reached a plateau which is good.
2.
“They have created a new breed of employees which I call the “OutBots“. These OutBots have been programmed not to think and blindly follow a process which is designed not to do a thing in a more efficient way but in a manner than the company can clock the most hours and bill the client without giving the client a feeling that he is taken for a ride.”
C’mon these is generalising way beyond logic…you are talking of a minority of the employees! Do you think client is so stupid?
3.
Leaving few exceptions, most of the companies as part of “The Axis of Evil” are happy to build routers & software … to take a slightest amount of risk which could have transformed them… happy to remain outsourced partners to “Miscrosoft”, “Nokia” and “GE” who are making billions on the technology which is built by our “Outbots” .
Thats their BUSINESS MODEL! just like your business model is to deliver products and profit from it…whats wrong as long as its legal?
4.
“So bad is the situation that I once had an employee all of 23 years old come to me and said…and make more money than him”. I had no words ..
Well you haven’t met many like me
Startup scene has recently invigorated in our country and slowly for sure things would improve.The argument that startups find it difficult to find employees is baseless.If there ARE challenges ,I am sure the are many passionate willing to join the ship…others I am sure even if willing you wouldn’t be interested.
Btw how many startups from India are tuly path-breaking…not mere silicon valley copies???
Not a sarcastic question but just for the record!
—Sri
@Sridhar,
Great input boss.
The real quetion here is not the big 3, but the attitude that I don’t want to spend the effort and make myself heard by clients.
If the startup really does good work, they get heard, or have people not heard of “google” or “hp” which started out of a garage.
The problem with Indian startups is that they do not have orginality and thoroughness of planning which others outside do have and therefore they prosper.
This is typical Indian mentality raised earlier in the responses.
Indian mind wants others/clients to applaud just because they call themselves a startup, but they forget the important question that the clients asks (Even the big 3) – “What have you got to offer?”
Ashish,
Great one again. We have similar problems in Sydney (and Aus in general). But here all large corporations and consultancies form that Axis of Evil and also risk aversion is fairly high.
And in fact I can see what you mean about that 23 year old. At 23 with no worries and far far far away from a midlife crisis, your main worry is “how can I make the most now?”… i suppose some kind of indication at equity and “big payoffs” may work but how do you substantiate it and keep that motivation alive… would like to hear your thoughts on that bit..
cheers
Sri
Ashish,
Very thought provoking article. IT industry is creating serious social problems. I have already read an article about the ill effects of IT revolution. May be you can read this. link is given below.
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=135534
rajesh
Not everybody can work on startups and not everybody is looking to do that. Those who have enterprenurial mind, still do that. Google was built by few dozen good engineers, so was yahoo and so was Twitter. This is how all startups work. You mean to say you can’t find few dozen good guys? Are you looking in right places at all?
There are many startups working on cool things in Bangalore. If you are talking about internet startups like anothrhsocialnw.in,anothertwitter.in then most of them in India are operating a Cut and Paste model. Same stuff which is already done in US, is done here. Big innovation ??
Come on, how may people benefitted from Indiagames? Wipro, TCS and many such companies lifted an entire generation’s lifestyle and morale. They made them believe. That they now need to relaunch into higher orbit is a different issue and all of them are trying to do that anyway. They have to relook at themselves and become more agile and also move up the value chain , now that the bottomline is taken care of.
For startups there is enough young blood. Share you ideas and dough with them but.
very dumb on your behalf to say “how may people benefitted from Indiagames? ” – u need to really understand the market and dynamics. The co. was acquired for a big number (and afaik founding team made ~6-7mn$)..
” Wipro, TCS and many such companies lifted an entire generation’s lifestyle and morale. They made them believe” – you must be kidding – you are talking about NIITians who ‘just’ need a job..
maybe ppl like u should not reply here…i guess you need to go back and understand the term “market opportunity”
No really,tell me How many thousand people benefitted from Indiagames? Not how many millions were made by few dozen?
People need job when they come from small towns where they were living in one room house with extended family. You think TCS , Wipro were not startups once? You think eveybody there is a fool and some of you copy cat, so called startups are big innovator? BS. If you were innovators , you should have become world beaters instead of selling off and preaching others.
May be if you understand market opportunity, you should start doing something about it and not come here and crib why some people work in Wipro and Infy and call all of them outbots. Everybody on his own right!!
do you understand the dif between “TECHNOLOGY” startups and “outsourcing: startups? Diff. between “product” companies and “service” companies?
@gaurav, get real. Its far better to do a twitter copycat that to play TT and forward jokes all day in TCS. dont belittle ppl saying that they are not innovative enough. I appreciate them for taking the path even if its not as innovative as we wud like. Its a starting step.
@rajesh,
“No really,tell me How many thousand people benefitted from Indiagames? Not how many millions were made by few dozen?”
Its not about benifiting in terms of money. The argument here is accusing big companies that they are holding talent from innovating and its a very reasonable point to make.
@RAJESH No I dont understand the difference between product and service. I just landed here yesterday. And if you think anything in HTML and Javascript is a technology, well what can I say. You are just another cog in wheel of economy of services and products. You are not the wheel. If some peoplpe have expercides other choices for thier career and life, why are you cribbing about..go to your garrage and produce something we can be proud of.
@boomerang Get real. You exaggerate. You think that everything startup is innovative and every one who is not working for startups is a outbot? Now that is a joke. This guy Pondal, what is he doping? He has just invested in Instablogs which is an a amazing company of very smart people. All day, they keep reading thier rss feeds from news sites and repost them as breaking news on instablogs. And they are called citizen journalists. Now how smart is that..arent they outbots?. isn’t he himslef producing more outbots? SO as long as he does it, it is ok, If everyone else does, he start cribbing.
@Gaurav, There are lots of ppl who learns some thing and try cant say try to can say attempt to show their work to other. They get some appreciation which makes them happy still they are trying to do some thing like “guy.com” not like u who laugh at others see what shit he/she has done !!
I really hate these ppl who ……………
Rajesh, This is in reply to your next comment. No offence, but what product development company have you started?
Shabda
It’s not about everybody starting their own company – its all about building a product co. vs.. services.
Understanding the diff between “TECHNOLOGY” startups and “outsourcing: startups..
Rajesh,
Could you define TECHNOLOGY(as you mention it always in caps)?
Are other cos working with axes and sickles?
Remember that all technologies are for the benefit viz service of the mankind…so there shouldnt be a problem if someone if making a living out of it(in whatever way!)
Are there only “TECHNOLOGY” professionals in your co?
Sridhar: Not to flame your pit-bull instincts – but, you know – even axes and sickles are TECHNOLOGIES. Just a correction.
@ Gaurav
You are entitled to your views about Pondal or Outbots, but please don’t drag us at Instablogs into it.
You may not agree with our business or technological model either but what we at Instablogs, as a small start up located in a hill station, are attempting is to carve out a space for an Indian company that if not better could at least challenge the domain of reputed names with deep pockets located in fancy offices.
Belittling us in your spar with Pondal or about Outbots is hitting below the belt.
@Rajesh:
You couldn’t have generalized it further. I work in one of the Big Three, and we have a large team (~3000 people) that works on cutting edge product technologies. We recently ventured into Cloud Computing, and we are doing extremely high quality work. People in my team generally work for 15 hours a day, and it’s extremely satisfying.
I don’t think any start-up could have provided me this experience. Being in a big organization, allows my Team Manager to take huge risks and create a start-up like atmosphere. We also enjoy all the perks that come along in a big company. Pay is obviously competitive.
In every company, there will be examples like mine. I tried my best to not take up my current job offer. I am the “outgoing”, “dropout”, “misfit”, “geek” type as you put it. I had offers from start up companies run by IITians that wanted to build a new facebook but promised to pay me lesser than a govt clerk. I decided not to undersell myself and join this big company.
I am glad I did so.
You r happy because u got a promotion recently. The big three r not the ones who created the concept of cloud computing. if u require 3000 people to create a software that means a lot of …. crap.
Simple.
Mantra
@Rajesh:
You couldn’t have generalized it further. I am 24. I work in one of the Big Three, and we have a large team (~3000 people) that works on cutting edge product technologies. We recently ventured into Cloud Computing, and we are doing extremely high quality work. People in my team generally work for 15 hours a day, and it’s extremely satisfying.
I don’t think any start-up could have provided me this experience. Being in a big organization, allows my Team Manager to take huge risks and create a start-up like atmosphere. We also enjoy all the perks that come along in a big company. Pay is obviously competitive.
In every company, there will be examples like mine. I tried my best to not take up my current job offer because i read about articles like this one. I am the “outgoing”, “dropout”, “misfit”, “geek” type as you put it. I had offers from start up companies run by IITians that wanted to build a new facebook but were willing to pay me lesser than a govt clerk. I decided not to undersell myself and joined this big company.
I am glad I did so. To those thinking of joining these companies – work quality partly depends on luck. But if you work really hard, and put in your best, your effort will always be appreciated.
@Rajesh:
You couldn’t have generalized it further. I am 24. I work in one of the Big Three, and we have a large team (~3000 people) that works on cutting edge product technologies. We recently ventured into Cloud Computing, and we are doing extremely high quality work. People in my team generally work for 15 hours a day, and it’s extremely satisfying.
I don’t think any start-up could have provided me this experience. Being in a big organization, allows my Team Manager to take huge risks and create a start-up like atmosphere. We also enjoy all the perks that come along in a big company. Pay is obviously competitive.
In every company, there will be examples like mine. I tried my best to not take up my current job offer because i read about articles like this one. I am the “outgoing”, “dropout”, “misfit”, “geek” type as you put it. I had offers from start up companies run by IITians that wanted to build a new facebook but were willing to pay me lesser than a govt clerk. I decided not to undersell myself and joined this big company.
I am glad I did so. To those thinking of joining these companies – work quality partly depends on luck. But if you work really hard, and put in your best, your effort will always be appreciated.
Great Post !
Startup ecosystem might be different then WIT !
From their Cost benefit analysis, they found its good for their company to have few percentage people on bench (as resource pool!), Have few onsite trip, have good cash ! then not to recruit. [Anyway, they got paid from their client based on number of people billed under their client!]
When client stop billing, they are firing the people !
For (unfunded/mid-funded) startup, one can’t afford this !
Vishal,
Though not very qualified to comment on technical issues but this does strike a valid point that if software and services has become such a big industry in India, why are we not innovators but just followers.
Is it inferior human resource or are our industry leaders only cultivating subservient mentality.
Are the bright brains being pampered with comforts and fat packages to such an extent that they stop thinking and stop innovating.
Star-ups are going to define the shape of things to come.
Defying heavy weights which include the ‘Axis of Evil’, none can stop an idea whose time has come.
I would say the “Axis of evil” for Indian startup scene is the big guy’s: Microsoft, Yahoo and Google. Here is why….
1. They hire all the smart people
2. Pay and pamper so much; Its tough to let go the comfort-zone
3. Work on more interesting/challenging problems than those at start-ups
Infact, i would argue, its good that Wipro, Infosys and TCS exist. They positively impact our GDP and have the capacity to absorb the losers(23 year old who thinks “bench” is a good thing). I’m glad this guy left you Vishal.
-Mahesh
Celebrating Life…
good point. I agree that rather its the big product companies which are holding talent and spoiling them with
great salary, free food etc.
In the US, the salary for software engineer is good, but comparable to other professions which means they cant afford houses just like others etc.. In India many s/w engineers can affod good houses and they buy at young age.
Its difficult to come out of this luxury
I work for one of those companies mentioned in the post. I partly agree with the author that these companies may not offer you so much scope to innovate or apply original thinking.
In my view following faactors play a key role in innovation
Socio-Economic factor – Majority of the candidates who look for jobs is from lower middle and middle class families. He/she needs to find a job as soon as one graduates. The candidate will look for companies which pay decent salary, stability and security. How many start ups can provide all these for the majority of the candidates? The minority who are willing to take the risk and who can afford to take the risk may agree to work for start-ups
It is not these companies do not offer scope for innovation at all.If you are innovative and willing to take the risk these companies do offer some opportunities. But it may not be as easy as in the start ups.
Vishal,
As someone already mentioned.Bravo!!
You have not minced even a word in speaking out the truth.
having fedup of working in one of those companies,I feel so happy now with my life that I am no more a Zombie(Or a outbot as u call
I had also raised the same concern few days back..
http://rashmiranjanpadhy.com/2008/05/29/indian-it-industry-just-dont-learn/
The sad part is with so much in their bank, they are still not looking to build a innovation culture. Some companies which claim to have innovation culture asks the employees to apply innovation to please their clients and not to bring out something more revolutionary.
The people working in these companies are so used to easy money that they are not willing to put more efforts and are always running after quick money. They never seem to understand the logic of building an empire and devot time to building something good.
And trust me this problem is not just with technology, it is every where. I run a startup thats on a thin revenue stream and cannot pay more than what I can and I am surprised by the number of ‘visionaries’ in ad agencies and digital agencies who are happy pretending to be outbots. Pretending cause they do not even do process driven jobs better.
Mediocrity is king and to hell with everything else.
Vishal I think a larger forum is needed to address this issue.
Interesting discussion, Vishal.
However at my previous start-up juncture, ControlCase (http://www.controlcase.com/), I did not face this problem at all.
It is true that you don’t get smart people so easily. In fact this is the same case with any other country as well. Roots of this problem goes to the fact that original thinking is missing right from the schools. Anyway, it is easy to fix it, through a proper rewarding system. These rewards could be anything: money, facilities, recognition, rich experience, etc (whatever, just take care that it is perceived as very much valuable for the new hire or for the existing employee).
In our company, I made sure that: we provide timing flexibility, social atmosphere, ‘change the world’ atmosphere, support to their other interests, work flexibility, questioning spirit, transparent operations, multiple responsibilities, flat structure, etc.
Basically it is like this: as a child we all loved to solve those elementary math problems (or better known as puzzles). Similarly I posed all our work issues as the challenges to my employees who all craved to solve them.
Coming to your problem: I think you need to tweak your recruitment procedures. Some strategies I have covered here:
http://malapati.blogspot.com/2008/06/generic-methodology-for-recruitment.html
Thanks,
Raja
The article states of the old way , If you can`t beat them start abusing them.
Ok Vishal few questions:-
What you were paying that guy ?, Does your pay standards match international standards of the capability of coder.
I have seen most startups shouting of dearth of talent, The shortage is not the talent, nor the will, Shortage is capability of companies of putting ideas into process and then process in execution, and in all these process get your people involved.
Most startups company give me a call for a profile of Sr. Developer and questions they ask is Can you work on Joomla ? WTF
No way i see Wipro , TCS going bad. They are doing pretty good into leveraging the amount paid to developers with international standards. A good developer easily lodge $70 USD per hour, Me itself being a fresh graduate make several times more money as a freelancer than my first job few months back (And yes my first job was at a startup).
Let me brief my idea in few terms, Dearth is not for talent, But the question of company capabilities to keep that talent
Nice article. This had been my theory too for a long time. And then I started off on my own and it was proved wrong. I realized that the ‘OutBots’ are an important part of the ecosystem. They play an role in making you take the that big leap of faith. You know that you dont want to become them.
There are a small minority in these places who are good technology guys, dont care a damn about processes and have an entrepreneurial focus. That is expected. Only around 0.1% of the population will be innovators. They are the ones a startup needs to attract. And the ‘OutBots’ make the job a bit easier.
What you say makes perfect sense but the trend of people quitting in two years from the Axis of Evil has started and will reach a tipping point hopefully. The top management keep luring the ” i will quit now ” syndrome techies with a promise of OnSite but very frankly – the pay is also quite low compared to the foreign standards.
Its weird, but we actually paid TCS 60K to break the bond to get one of their employees out. The guy is now happily coding at Mobshare for a lesser pay since the work is challenging
I’m sure this option is a great one for other starups out there to get quality coders who realize they want to do more than sit on a bench for the rest of their codable lives.
Wow – quite a response to the post.
Outbot culture certainly doesn’t help anyone, however the companies quoted here are extremely successful in terms of making revenues. If this can be tapped in the innovation, product driven ecosystem – it would be extremely helpful for all.
Have been watching this discussion for quite sometime.
Suggest you guys to avoid making personal attacks – and please conduct some research before making shallow comments (like ‘business model of instablogs, success story of indiagames etc’ – these, according to me are very shallow comments without any insight (I mean one really needs to substantiate why you think so )..maybe written in the heat of the moment.
One can question tons of things and will get nothing in return – but the discussion, which Vishal has brought in is quite fundamental in nature, than few companies/startups mentioned here.
It’s a lot about the mindset difference between engineers and developers..
So let’s stick to that and not digress away into personal attacks.
Over to you guys!
-Ashish.
Pingback: The Choking of Innovation: India’s much-vaunted IT Industry has to dramatically change if it to maintain its leadership role in the next 10 years. |Technology and Business Startups in India
So true man ! its a massive useless army of OutBots, don’t think just execute. The impact they leave on outgoing students who are going to take up a job is enormous and so wrong.
Its just that already we don’t have much of an atmosphere for people to work on ideas selflessly and to add to it people brag about there being lazy and earning their lot.
mera bhi ker wa do na bhai log !!!
Every organization has its plus and minus points.
Now that Wipro, Infosys and TCS are the most popular ones, its obvious that writing about them is a good publicity stunt and everyone wants to discuss.
All the information mentioned / referred should have both sides as of a coin.
Good Post. Great Comments!
Its really interesting to see that a person starts the conversation online (Publishing a post) and our Techie brothers join in supporting or going against or giving their views. Such discussions should happen for the benefit of the Indian Society.
Cheers!
Interesting article.
For sometime, I find that bashing big three has become a routine in business circles in India (Specifically in the IT businesses). We usually try to hide our failures by terming them as ‘Evil of Big Boss’. In my opinion, these three have showed us the place where we are. If, as a startup, we are able for find people to convert our esteemed and coveted ideas into the reality, it is because these three brought an IT revolution in India.
Let us rewind our memories for 10-15 years. It was really difficult to find a capable programmer. After all how many people knew computers those days. Now, every kid aspires to be a software engineer. This is awesome work.
These companies, at least in my case, inspired people to face the world. I understand that they started with simple and easy tasks. But isn’t that the way all of us started/starting. In fact, in all hard times, Infosys gives me the courage to continue.
Yes, the comparative salaries and workload are two issues that are created by these companies. But I do not really agree with the thoughts mentioned by Vishal. In fact, none of my people ever complained about having more work than their counterparts in big three. In fact, they are always happy of having more challenging work as compared to them and this keep them motivated. So, in my opinion, it is all about the way it is projected. If an employee is interested in learning and growth, he/she will be happy in a start-up. And definitely, start-ups doesn’t need lazy people who want to be on bench so it is better idea for them to let this baggage off at the earliest.
I quite agree with you about the quality of people is absolutely wayward, but there is more to it, why are these people benchers simply because they are not able to be part of the core team, second everyone like to hedge some risks of core members leaving! We will have people asprining to fool around leave them. REal maturity comes little later.
Second if you truly want to hire look at things beyond qualification, i have trained 10std pass students to work on data entry and complex one at that, so have made others who ordinarily we would have rejected because they cant speak well and might not fit into our prespective of an employee. Trust me my boss was stunned that i could get that out of some people.
My view is we need to look at it, look at real people, away from qualifications and look at people willing to learn from different background and respect them, some would leave, most would stick to you, they are your true employees with real values!
Rightly said Amit.
This article was nothing but rubbish. The author thinks himself to be the savior of Indian IT industry.
Wipro, Infy etc have not benefited their own employees but an entire generation. Millions of jobs were created, economy boom came to India and Indian Middle Class became really strong.
They became success stories for budding entrepreneurs.
I SALUTE THEM.
I understand that humility is not a virtue for an ex entrepreneur especially if s/he has had an (even mildly) successful exit. Even worse if s/he has turned VC.
Our big 3-5 services companies have successful profitable business models and they are competing globally.
And till our so called “technology” “product” companies can come up with a truly global business and till they can not create value for their employees or engineers, nothing should change. Pardon my ignorance , but how many employees of Indiagames benefited financially from their exit?
Also consider , how many employees of Infosys(or even Wipro) benefited when they went public? Now who created more value? and where should an aspiring smart/dumb engineer work?
Quick Qn – Except Wipro, how many entrepreneurs have Infosys and TCS produced?
To all Nazi *ssholes pleading for Wipro/Infy here:
Infosys, Wipro, TCS – are glorified Human Resource Staffing Firms which leverage the cost arbitrage between India and US. They *DO NOT* sell anything other than the human resource they generate via training or otherwise.
What does Toyota do? Sell Cars. What does Exxon Do? Sell Oil. What does Infy Do? Sell Man Hours.
What’s the core competency of Infy?
IndiaGames and other Product Startups/Companies in India and everywhere else are selling something that’s different from selling humans.
They are building brands. Its takes a long f*cking time to build a product brand. What is sell is surely not solely based on cost arbitrage and you go to a hell LOT MORE than showing up with a portfolio of Engineers.
To repeat: Infy/Wipro etc are NOT Software Companies. They are glorified Human Resource Staffing companies.
IndiaGames built a brand when there was none. That’s something an order of magnitude more important for an economy. That’s building value over volumes. That’s more wealth creation PER employee.
All Indian Software Companies with their 200k plus employees PUT TOGETHER earn less than a Microsoft today. With their growth rates in amidst of 10% now – they don’t seem to be catching up with Microsoft anytime soon. They will end up imploding when the cost arbitrage goes in favour of China. These Product companies everyone seen to be ridiculing here will eventually generate more value and more wealth for the employees. All they need is more support, cash – and some time.
@MetaTech,
You surely seem to have earned something out of IndiaGames. But let me tell you dear, the returns they got after the amount of investment they had was negligible for start-up kind of risk level.
Now compare that with your favorite example of Microsoft ..
Another thing, I am really curious to know how many employees of Indiagames had esops .. nah don’t bother comparing that with any product technology company outside India ..(Interestingly still author wonders why his employees were not ready to put in extra efforts ..)
This is the s*#% our current entrepreneurs are bringing to the ecosystem which essentially hurts all other startups.
We need better entrepreneurs than this to actually change this services culture to more conducive product culture ..(BTW Indiagames having founded in 99 is the last generation IMHO and I hope we have better companies now)
First tell me what the author or the rest of ecosystem doing to fix the entrepreneurs before telling us abt how evil the more successful companies are.
@realitybites – hasnt vishal started his seed fund venture?
What’s mentioned in this post is not just one startup’s pain –
“Interestingly still author wonders why his employees were not ready to put in extra efforts”
its the same issue with all the startups.
And there is an entire startup ecosystem that is gearing towards it (least that you can do is to keep checking pluggd.in for updates – there was one post regd. startup events today itself)
Its’ time we stop these cheap blame game and build something concrete (i.e. a product, to be very specific).
also – check out sanjay anandaram’s recent post to understand the product vs. service game.
-George K.
Point taken -George K,especially about pluggd.in and the their commitment to the ecosystem
But from the views expressed in the article, I sometimes wonder how disaster it could be for the new seed fund “sweat and blood”.
Does it he mean sweat and blood for entrepreneurs and their employees and great exit returns for the vc?
@ Mr. Sameer,
It seems like you have added a comment using name “sameer” and website “www.morpheusventure.com”.
Since I am “Sameer Guglani form morpheus”, I was curious to find out the reason why someone would leave a comment using my Identity?
@vishal : The comment was left by someone using my name and does not represent my thoughts
This is crazy – I am updating the name with : Anonymous coward (slashdot style). Very unethical for somebody to comment using other’s name/site.
Will block this guy’s IP, if it happens again.
I have avoided registration mandatory for commenting, but irresponsible comments like these tend to give me a second thought.
-Ashish
Great to see quick corrective action.
@MetaTech
I wonder what kind of an entrepreneur you will become. Please control the filthy language.
Entrepreneurs are driven by value. The least of value is hearing out others point of view however detestable it is.
I am not able to understand the ratinale of calling the big three as “axis of evil”. They are innovating in their own way. They too have some successful products.
In 2003, WIPRO came out with a BPM product which had a few customer’s that i knew of. Infosys has its own successful product call Flexcube. Their products are in the enterprise category. They are quitely selling it and making money.
Onmobile was incubated by Infosys. Printo in bangalore is an infosys spinoff for those who don’t know about it.
My intent here is not to defend these big “evils” as you call it. They are more worthy of mention than the IndiaGames founder(no offense intended). He didn’t have the tenacity to see it through and make it really big.
I am bothered by the arrogance of those expecting employees to work for 10+ hours a day for peanuts.Can you please reveal your fresher comprehensive pay package?
May be, you should go check the eco system in US to see what startups pay for their employees. I am pretty sure it’s not peanuts like people we do here in INDIA.
what we are witnessing here is “War for Talent”. You will not win it by casting the enemy as evil like George W Bush is doing.
Put your thinking hat’s to work. Vijay had a post in his blog about how to deal with talent crunch
http://vijaysblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/the-future-of-the-startup-workforce-ondemand-talent/
@Abubucker
Exactly, I would also like to add one more point in the discussion.
Most of the startups coming today are trying to thrive on the same outsourcing business and are shouting for talent crunch. We need more value based companies who thrive on quality.
I guess Vishal is writing this, because he lost his employee for a really stupid rather silly reason.
Infact, on the contrary, situation is exactly not what he is trying to portray.
I myself have worked in TCS since last 4 years and so have seen many people who have resigned within two months or so just because they were on bench.
Today I guess everybody is well aware that staying on bench for long is marring their productivity, their technical and learning growth and as a result their future opportunities.
In today’s world, where time is money, how can anybody put his career at stake just for the sake of free lunch or a table-tennis play at office?
I myself have worked continously for 12 hrs a day and even more than that and this is nothing as compared to the efforts put in by the other people working in my organisation.
My whole point is that the author is simply getting cynical just because of his own bad experience, which did hurt his ego somewhere.
i believe he is talking about a serious challenge that startups are facing (and he shared his example just to get across his viewpoint)..
“I guess everybody is well aware that staying on bench for long is marring their productivity, their technical and learning growth and as a result their future opportunities” – that stil not true – i know of few IIT guys who hv joined infy and are in bench
IIT guys on bench on infosys , (No offenses) So, what ?, Being in IIT doesn`t mean you are best in talent.
dude – lets stick to the context – which is that if IITians are in bench (and yeah – infy/tcs isnt allowed in many of the iit campuses in the first few months), so imagine the plight of other guys.
anywyas, back to the context- i guess ppl have ‘generally’ started questioning everythng and are sounding too idealistic (and unpractical)
The context in this thread is Short of talent crunch and value production by companies for their employees, And yes it`s true that being in IIT doesn`t mean that you are top on talent food chain, Best of talented (hacker) guys i know even are not grads
Interesting discussions. The outbot culture is most definitely killing culture but a few key points stated about the inherent lack of lateral thinking in Indian Education and the inability of start – ups to retail people for multiple reasons are notable.
Ok so lets start looking at hot Indian start – ups who have been consistent –
One company that i can think of is Deskaway – based out of Mumbai, they have a really strong work ethic. They have an app which is making waves internationally (sadly not too many Indians are talking about it). I personally use the app and its been improving since day 1. Very slick, feature heavy and the fundamentals are right. I’ve met their founder Sahil Parikh a couple of times. He’s got the essentials and i believe he has had a great team which he has managed to retain. The guy has a strong urge to make the World believe that Indian companies are not all Outbots (we have been unfortunately branded as an outhouse for operations) and he keeps trying to do this by making DA much better than the likes of Basecamp. That passion, i think is missing in lots of us. How many of you can say you have passion + perseverance?
Let’s start naming a few more companies like Deskaway – these hidden jewels.
What if the entire community of people – all Indian Smart People got together to form 1 company – a eutopian idea. But if egos were kept aside – can we have the next Google?
Vishal, I think you are better doing games.
The big giants you are throwing bricks at are more innovative than your company. There might be few cases of people sitting on bench, but overall only best talent in the market is able to get in them.
Tell me truly, have you ever tried getting there?
Hello Friends,
I am thrilled to see the amount of discussion and debate we are having on this topic and how passionately many of you are for it or against it.
The big point is atleast each one of you stand for a cause and not on the fence.
All the points mentoned here have merrits and I will be responding to them in a differnt post. However there were few which were frivilous and ‘dumb’ and a google search will get you many of the answers.
Finally on the name “Sweat & Blood” this comes from the old hindi saying “Khoon Pasina” which translates into “Work + Passion”. What we am looking for is not just people who can work and have a business idea with a great team but more important is the “Passion”
Vishal
What does “OUTBOT” means?
I have googled the term and couldn’t find anything. Another new invention by you?
You must be aware of a very new termed phrase , Love your work but not your company.
If any startup is good enough, paying good compensation , make the work ecosystem challenging and fun to work. There is no dearth of talent in the market.
What does “OUTBOT” means?
I have googled the term and couldn’t find anything? Another new invention by you.
You have touched the right chord. I think more than the salary structure, the work culture has had a more bad impact. People do not want to work on one technology for more than a year. What happens is people keep hopping from one technology to other and what they become is jack of all trades master of none. You hire Technical Architects and apart from making nice UML diagrams, none of them ever knows how to do memory profiling. So even after paying lots of money, one cannot get quality people, and that’s even a bigger dilemma.
this is an excellent point and very relevant. i am a personal example of “Jack of all trades”.
I sometimes feel the pinch of not being an expert. If we have everybody as experts then who will do the not so attractive job.
A really entrepreneurial ecosystem needs diversity in it’s people capabilities. The issue here is how to leverage the same.
This article is PLAIN WRONG. If startups cannot attract people, it is *their* problem. It is like calling a backpack trip in Italy a derogatory thing when you can simply roam and derive pleasure in LOC, trapped between Indian and Pakistani armed forces.
It is simply a matter of personal choice. You cannot impose that onto anyone. Just because you have a startup, does not automatically make it cool. I surprised by the hypocrisy flowing blatantly in this article. Imagine if IndiaGames makes it really big. Won’t it join the axis of evil?
No way. In fact, it would be a place where people could chill and enjoy life, which most people want to do. If someone wants the thrill of war, he might not join it. But that is a different matter all together.
I think you raise a very important issue. I do feel however, that there is another, newer breed of software firms – smaller, more product engineering oriented firms that work to develop software for startups from scratch. The software engineers in these firms constantly exposed entrepreneurs and to the cutting edge of innovation, indeed they often build these products from scratch – a very different experience from the Infy engineer doing mind numbing coding.
Perhaps you’ll find that entrepeneurs will start emerging from here?
Gautam Kshatriya
gautam.kshatriya@moneyvidya.com
http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog
Great post Vishal.
Axis of evil, I agree.
Problems for startups. Rightly said. I am in the same situation.
Highly intellectual people from my institute joined these very same companies mentioned above, instead of doing anything at their own. They were intelligent, good programmers, creative enough to build applications at their own. They are going to be ‘OutBOTs’. They understand it well and they don’t even like to sit on benches .. getting paid every month for doing nothing at all.. being a kind of backup labour that these companies keep for future ( not sure! as it will turnout in next 1-2 years)demands or projects. At least some knowledgeable dude does not.
But they see no other possibilities.
Not everyone can start at their own and build their own companies. 90 percent are going to sink without making a rupee in profit.
Where is the system that will allow these people exercise their intellect? and at the first hand where is the system that will at least show them the wider picture, perceptions from elevation.
These three companies were once startups. Industry, people oriented themselves to their business models. So does everyone else after joining college, appearing for campus interviews, studying a very little core engineering subjects ( coz axis of people do not ask anything special – 5 days training is enough to get an average English speaking guy in, provided he is having enough academic credentials, i do not qualify though).
Now all these people who are discussing above I will say, there is an opportunity for them.
Need as I can put it forward is : intellectuals need a respectful job, knowledge enhancing job profile.
Stats: Only 10% will pay any attention at first. These are people who really hate to enter these companies. Tap their talent. Grow it. And do it genuinely.
For that you may need to start from 2nd year of an undergraduate engineering student. ( you will have better opinions/plans/situations about it if you at least agree with things i said above).
I will blame TCS, wipro and Infy for not being very money minded or shrewd but for being stupid. They have the highest intellectual assets and they are lagging, fighting with margins, not being product companies or even software companies ( its different from outsourcing). Doing the same thing over and over again. Being big should also mean being responsible.
Software industry will remain disturbed because of them (in india untill guys like you do not start doing some thing about it )because they (I guess do not care bout any national interest)
… How much did they invest in research, empowerment of universities, education etc… zero as compared to the profits they made… This model has a life and its going to be invalid very soon……
Note: I am just a fresher. I have not even worked in any company so far. Working on my own. My objective was just to point out that we need another system in place. And there is a need for such a system. And a need means business- right.
Great Post Vishal! Though i do agree that these companies have created OutBots & alongwith it also a situation wherein not mnay people are willing to work for startups as they are lured by those playing tennis and earning more but i also believe that in a services industry wherein the numbers are so huge such a situation is bound to happen.
And on flip side, as startups needs are restricted and numbers are never going to be huge my belief is that you can (might be wrong) continue finding people who are really interested in startups and ready to log in that extra number of hrs. So in way the target audiences are diff.
Vishal
I am afraid I have to mostly disagree with you on this. Although I agree with you that the big 3 are a problem but they are not the root cause.
If we blame them for problems in the startup industry then it shows a problem with the startup industry itself.
IMPO the unpleasant truth that we may not like to hear is that we need cultural change and one example of such a change is to not waste time on blaming others for something we are not able to do. Another cultural change needed is additional maturity, soft skills, respect for engineering professionals (compared to MBAs and marketing types). I believe there are some recent studies that back this up as well. Anyway, just my individual opinion, so please take it with a smile
.
Why are the startups not able to attract or retain talent ?
Are the startups not able to make their case to prospective employees ? If not, the problem lies with them and not with the big 3. There is no doubt that the big 3 are not innovating at all but they really never claimed they would. They have done their job of billing for services and injecting some serious money into the Indian middle class. Now its the turn of the startups to stand up and take responsibility for their own ability or inability to attract talent and create innovative, world class companies.
BTW I am very optimistic that there are people in India who are changing the situation for the better and things will continue to get even better in future.
Just take a look at why Wipro , Satyam and CTS are more the Axis of Evil for the employees!
http://www.workexp.com/index.php?s=wipro
You surely seem to have earned something out of IndiaGames. But let me tell you dear, the returns they got after the amount of investment they had was negligible for start-up kind of risk level.
Now compare that with your favorite example of Microsoft ..
Another thing, I am really curious to know how many employees of Indiagames had esops .. nah don’t bother comparing that with any product technology company outside India ..(Interestingly still author wonders why his employees were not ready to put in extra efforts ..)
This is the s*#% our current entrepreneurs are bringing to the ecosystem which essentially hurts all other startups.
We need better entrepreneurs than this to actually change this services culture to more conducive product culture ..(BTW Indiagames having founded in 99 is the last generation IMHO and I hope we have better companies now)
First tell me what the author or the rest of ecosystem doing to fix the entrepreneurs before telling us abt how evil the more successful companies are.
g8 article vishal.. good to see that you have to guts to call Infy/Wirpo/TCS etc. ‘evil’ in a public forum. I know many people who share similar views in private but would never dare to speak up..
Yes there are both sides to the coin… and there are some good things which they have down.. but this is what I call short term gain-long term loss. Guys insted of making personal attacks on Vishal we should focus on the larger issue of product v/s service mindset and ‘outbot’ mentality
With morons like Raj Agrawal and Prabhat Maharana leading data mining initiatives (they call it platform BPO .. how stupid!!!) at TCS, what more can be expected. Raj is sucking the blood of TCS & Indian talent.
Whoever has written this piece using my name is not sane. And i am sure he/or she knows me well enough. As for his intentions, only GOD knows.
Thanks to those who brought this “utter nuisance” to my notice.
I use this forum now to express the fact that the piece attributed to me has been written by someone else, either to malign me or to get me sacked from TCS. When the time comes we may need to “find our the Ip” from where this msg was written.
Now that I no longer work for TCS, I can fearlessly say what I said earlier is right . Truly people like Raj Agrawal from IIT and other useless people like Prabhat Maharana are utter nuisance and leeches who suck the great talent pool of India in the name of platform analytics. Raj and Prabhat should be fired from TCS immediately.
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The problem we are discussing here is not just about the three companies listed above. Like the case of reservation we are targeting the wrong link. The process started way below. Right when a person is trying to figure out what he should opts for after 10th.
Please don’t blame employees for leaving because they don’t buy into your dreams. Not everybody is supposed to be founders. Most of use are born to be employees.
Employees are shown the wrong picture and lied to everywhere. Be it a huge company or a startup. How many so-called-startups are willing to give percentage of their company anyway?
If you are so startuppy, find partners for your company and not employees. Employees will always look for short term goals.
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IT companies killing India’s future
“IT companies are responsible for the kind of growth India is witnessing today, and will also be responsible
for the kind of growth India will not see in the near future”.
How is that possible is a question which lot of you must be wondering.
How is that possible?? We all know what companies like Infosys,TCS etc etc has turned India into a place to be. But all this has already happened, its something of the past, lets try looking some years down the line of our career say 10 years.
How many projects,technologies,products,companies we all would have changed by then. How much time we would have spent working on different things when all you us know today its all about specialization not generalization.
Lets do some mathematics here on the amount of time spent:
( 8 hours x 20 days x 12 months x 10 years ) = 19200 hours.
Just imagine what could have been achieved if we spent that much amount of time on one thing. Forget about spending the entire 19200 hours on it, even if we spent half of it, we could create wonders. My question is, does any of the IT companies give their employees some time to think something new. They don’t and why would they, they pay you not to think but to work. IT companies in India with its huge bench strength don’t encourage employees to play around with latest technologies.They just want you to do whatever you have been asked to. Basically what it means is .. be dumb programmers (sorry, if it sounds rude) not smart programmers, not create something new but most of the times whatever already exists.
One of the employees in an IT company recently told me: “In an IT company in a year you work for around 3-4 months ( in terms of man hours) and for rest of the time you actually do nothing”. In the process we enter such a comfort zone that our brain doesn’t allow us to come out of it. We become complacent and don’t even try to break out of this comfort zone. But am afraid this attitude forget about India, its not going to take us as individuals anywhere. Every year Software engineers, tens of thousands of them graduate from engineering colleges across India. How many of them do we know as successful entrepreneurs or even just entrepreneurs, am afraid there are actually not many. I don’t want to answer the question why this is happening, why don’t you answer it. Frankly speaking i would like to hear answers to this question ( Submit a response to this article ).
Trust me we don’t need a revolutionary idea to start with. Even companies like Yahoo or Google didn’t start with a very revolutionary or big bang idea, it evolved with time. And it did because the founders believed in what they were doing and spent hours,days and months to take it forward. They worked just on one thing something which they believed, built it from scratch to a giant.
Yahoo was just a directory of Web pages classified under categories and sub categories and guess what the founders were not Computer engineers they were Electrical Engineers.
When Google came into existence there were many other companies like Yahoo, Excite and many more search engines already in existence. The logic which the founders of Google had come up when they started Google was again not something revolutionary. PAGE RANK is what made them different from other search engines.
Below is the Algorithm in its crudest form
Pages B, C, and D all link to A, and they already have their PageRanks calculated. B
also links to three other pages and C links to four other pages. D only links to A. To
get A’s PageRank, take the PageRank (PR) of each of the pages that links to A divided
by the total number of links on that page, then multiply this by a damping factor of
0.85, and add a minimum value of 0.15. The calculation for PR(A) is:
PR(A) = 0.15 + 0.85 * ( PR(B)/links(B) + PR(C)/links(C) + PR(D)/links(D) )
= 0.15 + 0.85 * ( 0.5/4 + 0.7/5 + 0.2/1 )
= 0.15 + 0.85 * ( 0.125 + 0.14 + 0.2)
= 0.15 + 0.85 * 0.465
= 0.54525
When they approached VCs or search companies in silicon valley they were shown the way out within minutes. But Larry Page and Sergey Brin believed in what they had created even though at that point of time they had no idea how to make money out of it and it took them years to figure out how to. At one point of time Google was shelling out millions in salary with no idea how to earn revenue.
Today all of us know where their belief has taken them. Google today is a company worth more than $200 billion ( 800000 crore INR .. how many zeroes does it have .. whatever be the number its huge money ) that too in just 10 years.
Bill Gates recently said : Dream big and money will follow on its own
The basic point which i am trying to make here is just imagine what we can create if we start working on one particular thing instead of playing around with different projects, technologies and products. That one thing is something which each one of us has to identify and it sure will involve lot of thought process. The return of time invested might not be very quick but if believe what you are doing is something and you are willing to spend time on it, its sure going to be the next BIG thing.
good article
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If you are not getting people for startups in India, move to Silicon Valley!! The outbots have left many talented and hardworking engineers jobless…So if you want innovative programmers reverse outsource your work to USA!!!
Haven’t read all the replies, but it seems that the so called axis of evil are the very ones who could provide the entire solution to the ecosystem that everyone in India is searching for.
We look at stanford etc as incubators where all the good ideas came from, if only the wipro’s of this world would start to behave like incubators and foster companies out of them. They have all the money they need, they have the teams, they just need to setup departments internally which do this. (maybe some have, I dont know)
Iqbal
PS I am seeing of late lots of web 2.0 comps going pear shaped globally, irrespective of the funding, is it just me, or is advertising no longer working as a revenue stream, even to the large players who have traffic like facebook, twitter etc, and if so and people are unwilling to pay for usage, then whats the next revenue stream, we had advertising, we had users paying…whats next ?
jhakas discussion.Kudos for shaking the IT hamals.
It seems funny when you report this. If you have an employee at a startup who is thinking of a. Not working or b. Pay package then I am sorry to say you are hring the wrong people. I personally work for a startup and neither of the two things you have reported really excite me… All that excites me is the hope of making this company successful and get it public one day….
And please do not blame ppl who do not care abt a or b and want a comapny to go public. The problem is no one in India really cares about an IPO coz they havent seen anyone in a company make millions with an IPO just as early employee at Google or MS did…Once we have a couple of comapnies like that this scenario will change and we will have a different outlook altogether…
why the owner of startups expects that the employee they hire should work for more hrs ,get less pay as compare to any other company in the area of their experties.
It is unfaire expectations.why dont you (startups) offer them stake in company and see they will put 20 hrs day.It is business as usuall not charity here.You are on the professional path dont talk unprofessional language.
Every one hates to look among their own inefficiencies.
During my last visit to Germany, my german manager was telling how Indians are screwing the technical talent in germany. He said the US headquarters looks at price
1 US guy -> 2 German Guy – 5 Indians and may be 10 Chinese .
I did understand his point but the fact remain that your people should have quality or low cost.If you have none ( low quality and high price) customer will say you goodbye and look for cheaper alternative for same quality.
People cry that big retail malls kill the corner shops, but did anyone see how child labour /tax evasion etc is used in high proportion in those corner shops.
This article writer is crying that employee’s are kicking his ass for making them work for 10-15 hours a day with half the market rate as salary and no benefits and leisure facilities.
Either your startup has a poor business model or you are trying to make more money for your vernture capitalist by squeezing employees.
There is an adage – The one who cant play the instrument , blames the instrument. Dont agree with your view fully… few of the issues pointed are right .
I’ve worked in both INFY and TCS, heard a lot about WIPRO, agree with some of the sterotypes you tried to cash on … but your blog overall sounds like some rediff.com crap… trying to seek attention and blaming it on the market and the larger players in the market. Be honest about your problems … dont blame others as a reason for you not making a fortune.
The article might sound immature, blaming others for ur misfortune, but there’s some truth at the bottom of it ..let me clarify:
1. “axis of evil” might get this article more hits, but one undeniable truth is, these three companies have almost single-handedly created huge employment in our country…one can almost say they brought IT to India’s doorstep which consequently raised our standard of living…middle class people can dream of cars and branded clothing.
even these companies were startups once upon a time started by passionate people..it’s a different matter how they have evolved.
2. But it’s also true that there’s very little innovation in our country…d startup scene is only just picking up. I blame it on two things: the herd mentality, that India is known for…before independence lawyers were in demand, then it was government jobs, now it’s IT..whether u like the work or not, no matter how long u have to work, it’s d money, d status that matters. nothing called job satisfaction in our country…
secondly, lack of social security…more money = more security, so it’s a compromise between wht u want to do and what u have to. There are only a couple of “Weirdos” who wud place satisfaction before money or status. they start the startups. (of course, there are also some who can afford not to get a salary and still live a good life) All others who want to lead a decent life have to give in to “social pressures”.
We Indians have beaten ourselves into a mode where we can “adjust” with anything…our schools don’t teach us to follow our heart…we don’t know what talent we have, we don’t know how we can pursue a talent…we have never heard of a career besides engineer, doctor, lawyer. There’s nothing called a “Calling”,…it’s only a job..
and those who dare speak out differently have had it…struggle’s d name of the game..it’s a tough life, honey!
It’s easier to soothe the soul than the stomach i guess.
@Shir herd mentality is across the world in all countries in all cultures through out the history of mankind- India is no exception… jews migrated from Africa to Middle east in search of promised land. Aryans to the gangetic plain… Its struggle for existence. The elite think india can be changed over night, becuase they can recognize the change easily. The popular ways of living are always embraced openly.
The real problem is not india’s herd mentality … I again say its sterotyping … an american says indians are greedy becasue a he was looted by cab driver . How many of the elites discussing greed based on an american’s opinion know that its equally likely that an indian may be looted in New York or London, or may be shot by a black in Midwest of USA.
The problem is not herd mentality – Its our education system capable of creating MORONS, and a societal condition that gives more importance to well-settled, high earning, english speaking snobs than to those who show real interest in science and arts. Our schools donot promote research, they dont have funds, the funds are eaten up by politicians or they are simply insufficient…. blaming a society or a group and pushing the problem away is so easy … the reality is indians are no less innovative than others, they are no less enterprising than others …. Most of those who have the capability and ability do not want to … becuase the system and the country manifested itself into what it is today.
@Shri
The popular ways of living are always embraced openly.
Herd mentality is across the world in all countries in all cultures through out the history of mankind- India is no exception… jews migrated from Africa to Middle east in search of promised land. Aryans to the gangetic plain… Its struggle for existence. The elite think india can be changed over night, becuase they can recognize the change easily.
I again say its sterotyping…. The real problem is not india’s herd mentality … … an american says indians are greedy becasue a he was looted by cab driver . How many of the elites discussing greed based on an american’s opinion know that its equally likely that an indian may be looted in New York or London, or may be shot by a black in Midwest of USA.
The problem is not herd mentality – Its our education system capable of creating MORONS, and a societal condition that gives more importance to well-settled, high earning, english speaking snobs than to those who show real interest in science and arts. Our schools donot promote research, they dont have funds, the funds are eaten up by politicians or they are simply insufficient…. blaming a society or a group and pushing the problem away is so easy … the reality is indians are no less innovative than others, they are no less enterprising than others …. Most of those who have the capability and ability do not want to … becuase the system and the country manifested itself into what it is today.
Those in businesses and startup? one question to you – Are there any benefits or aids, tax sops from government if you are running a small medium sized business? Though outside the point of this article, but wanted to understand the benefits you guys get from goverment and Nasscom for being startup/smallsize and medium-size businesses.
If software is sold to these businesses by Microsoft and IBM at a lesser rate, is govt doing anything for you? Is there any nation wide representation for startups?
i wasnt surprised at ur post, thats because even i feel the same and from the college days itself. i always told my friends not to join these companies, i used to call them “truck wali companies”-for they come to campus with an empty truck and fill it, drop the people somewhere and then take the empty truck somewhr else. they pay no heed to talent, they dont want to create entrepreneurs or make the country a better place, all they want are bots who are happy with the money and facility and the brand name. Students joining them are equally responsible but they dont have much choice since an average student’s parents are only when their child is placed in one of those 4 majors(satyam included in that list, atleast till a few days back)… the problem is from both sides and worse is that not much can be done about it as everyday i find people vying for a 4×4 cabin in those evil companies. God help my country and its denizens. Amen.
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I don’t believe this, having said that trio takes more than a couple of engineers to replace a bulb I think startups has point to show and get the work done by less. These very companies started more than 25 years back and showed people another direction to think. Had these success stories been not there many would not have even given a chance to start their own ventures. Today when market is creeping for finance you don’t see them laying off (or even if but not in very big numbers) but yes you pick up a startup and you will find how secure ppl are there. Working at startups for 14 hrs a day and losing balance between your work life, making money but no time to enjoy there life.
100% true, I agree with you @Vishal Gondal
I totally agree with the writer. But I have something more important to add:
1. Neither TCS, nor Infosys, and not even Wipro; provide any kind of insurance to the dependents of their employees. especially parents are not covered by them. kids are. when we all know that its the parents who are more likely to need the health insurance than the kids.
2. This axis of evil is renowned for trampling on the dignity of employees, by subjecting them to frequent bag searches, frisks, etc etc. its a shame to see long queues outside Infy office (across the road), poor employees are checked as if each one of them is going to plant a bomb in the basement.
3. The HR departments are a farce. a HUGE FARCE. These companies invariably hire the cheapest and most worthless HR staff. esp TCS, I recall one guy who used to communicate with me, and he couldnt write a single sentence without spelling errors. imagine that guy used to type: “EMALE” instead of email.
Interesting..an article talking about “need for innovation: and at the same time “blaming”.
I think all that is going to change , thanks to the recession. The clients of these companies are already switching to the fixed cost model. So I think once the clients get a feel that they can get the same service delivered on a fixed cost, they will never go back to the man hour pricing.
It was interesting to read but I like many here already beg to differ. These organizations are not charity groups who have to keep the entire globe happy. These are businesses who have done well for themselves, for their people, for the economy. People in these organizations work equally hard and more and that shows. How else can you explain the exponential growth of these industry leaders. There is passion in work that these guys do and that has kept the momentum going. They are not product companies, they are service companies and hence the resources that fetch all the money are the people who you so casually called “outbots”. They did something different at some point of time to become what they are today. They did not start as a billion dollar company each. So if we are talking about innovation, you know where to innovate. Request you to give the credit where it is due.
What can a startup in India do then? You look at the people working in other startups in US and Israel, and all of them are so enthusiastic – they actually believe they are a part of a radical change in the world. Here, most idiots prefer to sit on their ass and feed on big salaries. More often than not, it is because of that shittiest of Indian social units – the family. Most graduates don’t want to work in a small company because “what will my parents think? Or, what will that idiot Shukla uncle from across the road think when I tell him I work in a startup?”
Fuck Indians man..I’m so thoroughly disappointed..this country hates entrepreneurs and change.
That’s good man, keep it going.
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I don’t agree to this at all. The so called “Outbots” can never create a billion dollar company. Companies who outsource their work to Infy/Wipro/TCS, are not stupid to pay so much for “outbots”. Every employee is an adult and have full rights and privileges to be a thought leader/innovator in his or her area of work. No one can stop him, infact that’s what is generally facilitated by any organization, in which you work , irrespective of its size.
Contradictorily, I am really afraid of the kind of working environment which you get in small startups. They don’t have that much to spend on such things which leads to dissatisfaction at some point of time, even if you were happy with the quality of work . At the end of it, what count is job satisfaction which is a summation of work quality, work environment, salary and above all job security . Do we see all that coming well in start-ups?
Nice topic even our company they check and leave the employees as if we are the thieves. That was my first job and worked in MNC as one year bond was there. Now thinking to set up a company … Yet not planned…
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What a precise piece of writing. I tend to think if these companies are anyway assisting India building its assets, which is people. They have zero innovation and the only emphasis they have is the cost affordability which will not last longer.
I stumbled onto this page after trying to find out if the media reports any gaffes by the biggies…. I could find only one – the report on the Passport Seva Project….on reading the comments for the article, I realized that blogs will be the place to be… why am I doing this…. Coz I recently resigned from one of these biggies, and couldn’t stop thinking about the opportunities these companies are missing in terms of upgrading the multitudes of “talent” that they are hiring. What I realized while going through the blog and and the comments is that the blame game will never stop, coz that’s what we have been programmed to do: Something goes bad, blame luck. You have great creativity, but always face criticism coz u didn’t get straight A’s, blame the education system. You got into a crappy company, blame your placement officer. You missed the onsite bandwagon because of some nut flatterer, blame the management.
My point is…. there will always be some reason to blame. But the need to blame goes away when you realize that what you wanted couldn’t have happened in any case.
Look at it like this: Suppose, by a stroke of luck, 2 or more incredibly intelligent individuals come together, team up beautifully and come up with something that the world needed desperately, but didn’t actually know that it was in need. What do you get? The cell phone? the internet? the first irrigation system? Maybe these people fared really well after their innovations. Maybe they went bankrupt because some new disruptive technology took over (Read: open source, non-conventional energy, free email….get the gist?)
What I am trying to say is that it’s the individual’s choice whether he or she wants to grow intellectually. You cannot blame the companies for promoting the “rich dud” attitude. If you can take a firm decision to stick to your principles and not be swayed by what others say, well, congratulations. If not, then nothing. Simple as that.
If you want your startup to be successful, stop at nothing. Convince them you’re the best deal, that they won’t have to pay for maintenance. And if you and your team have to work 10 hours a day for this, and someone starts grumbling, well, maybe he/she isn’t really worth your time and money. And look at the bright side… you might have to deal with maybe one or two idiots…. the biggies have to be stuck with thousands.