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YC Interviews in India
- vesh 8y agoBengalūru, it has been 14 year since the name changed officially would appreciate if people stopped using the anglicized name of our city.
- saagarjha 8y agoLike it or not, Bangalore is significantly more recognizable than Bengaluru (for example, the Wikipedia page uses it). So I doubt it's going away any time soon…
- dingo_bat 8y agoI live here and hate the new name. It feels dumb to say it, whereas Bangalore sounds very modern. Kind of like Dilli vs Delhi.
- plibither8 8y agoWho knew you could also feel dumb by calling a city a certain name, and feel modern by calling it another?
- Alterlife 8y agoI live here too. I like the 'new' name, it has grown on me. I think it's endearing and friendly -- like a petname. "Namma Bengaluru" vs stiff-upper-lip British Bangalore. Putting my personal opinion aside, it's definitely not catching on: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Bengaluru,bangalore https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Bengaluru,bangalo... I still call it Bangalore in any formal setting.
- dingo_bat 8y ago> I still call it Bangalore in any formal setting. It's kind of funny because I use Bengaluru in any official/formal setting but Bangalore when I'm talking with friends.
- rorykoehler 8y agoBangalore is the English name. My city is called Dublin in English and Baile Átha Cliath in our native language of Irish. As an Irishman I understand better than most the resentment towards the English but really this is not a battle worth fighting. Both names are correct in their respective languages.
- vesh 8y agoI don't have any resentment towards English. The city has been around for as long as the English language and nobody local never called it with the anglicized name if anything it would be more of a correction.
- rorykoehler 8y agoMy point was more that every language uses different names for places. It's like saying we can't call Germany Germany anymore because Germans call it Deutschland.
- sharmi 8y agoMy take on this: Though Bangalore is a relatively new name, it has been deeply ingrained in recent collective memory and literature. So it needs some time to change. Other cases in point, Bombay -> Mumbai. Madras -> Chennai, Calcutta -> Kolkata. While these changes have been adopted in some circles, the anglized form is still in use in many places. Especially, places and instances that have history pertaining to the past few centuries. Also, in IT field, Bangalore symbolizes more than the city. It is a standin for the Indian IT industry and it's boom in general. It has a certain connotation and degree of recognizability that may be lost when using Bengaluru. Still with time, it too would change.
- keerthiko 8y agoBengaluru is now the official name in the English language. Bangalore is the British Empire's English name. It is a relic of colonization that is worth leaving behind. This battle is completely worth fighting. If Ireland officially lists Dublin as Baile Atha Cliath for addresses, the airport, and for international English references, I will use that. This is not about two different languages, but of erasure.
- Permit 8y agoUsing the anglicized name in English doesn't strike me as particularly egregious. (Presumably you don't say "Espanol" or "Francais" when describing other languages in English. Or describe "China" as "Zhongguo"). However, they should probably at least correct the "Banglore" misspellings in the FAQ.
- adora 8y agooops, fixed. thx :)
- niyaven 8y agoLots of city names are translated. Even in India people would probably say "Rome" instead of "Roma", "Moscow" instead of "Moskvá". And it's not only in English, Italian would say "Tolosa" instead of "Toulouse", German would say "Mailand" instead of "Milan", French would say "Cracovie" instead of "Kraków" an so on...
- kurtisc 8y agoWhat about Bombay, Peking, Persia, Siam, Ceylon, Burma, Leningrad?
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoAnd when you talk (in English or Kannada) about Rome, do you write (and say) 'Roma'? When you talk about Moscow, do you say 'Moskvá'? (Even closer to home, do you say 'naaii dillii'?)
- pritambaral 8y agoWhile I agree with you in general, you would have a better case with a different city than New Delhi, because most Indians simply never use the full English name in informal parlance — it's always been 'Dilli' (in Hindi) and/or 'Deli' (in inf. Indian English). In fact, the term (and equivalents of) 'Old Delhi' see more common use than 'New Delhi', largely because the latter is the one most commonly referred to as just 'Delhi'.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoTalking with people who live in Delhi (in both English and Hindi), I got the sense that 'dilli' is becoming increasingly rare. I am overall rather tired of the city-renaming craze. It seems like expensive bike-shedding at best. You end up with ridiculous scenarios like renaming 'Madras' to 'Chennai', where 'Madras' in fact is a native, historic Tamil name for the city, and 'Chennai' is the name of Telugu collaborator with the British.
- achow 8y ago'Bangalore' vs 'Bengaluru' by people of Karnataka - the state of which Bangalore is capital of. Bangalore: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=IN-KA&q=bangalore https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=IN-KA&q=bangalo... Bengaluru: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=IN-KA&q=bengaluru https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=IN-KA&q=bengalu...
- keerthiko 8y agoplease look at it for "all time" (that google has data for) Bangalore: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&q=bangalore https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&... Bengaluru: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&q=bengaluru https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&... This is a post-colonial battle still being fought, and India's wish to shed its colonial shackles deserves to be respected.
- achow 8y agoMy one year Google Trend time range was deliberate. When both 'Bangalore' and 'Bengaluru' is equally familiar with public AND 'Bengaluru' is being pushed by govt institutions, we need to see which name is still in trend with locals. 'Bangalore' name should have been at zero if all the locals were using the new name. If the time range is increased to the time when Bengaluru was not yet a familiar term then it is quite obvious that this new name would trend upwards to the current time.
- keerthiko 8y agoI know it was deliberate, and deliberately hiding the story. Certainly several locals will prefer the name they grew up with. Some find it rolls off the tongue better when speaking English, or just because they used Bangalore for many years already. No such change will ever have 100% coverage in such a short time, yet I think it's worth consciously respecting. Locals will use both interchangeably because it's often used informally, but I think for anything official, it's important to use the correct and official name, which is Bengaluru. Such as here, this is not an informal post by YC but an official announcement.
- bprasanna 8y agoThis is not the right place to show your love for the name. We should be happy about YC considering Bangalore/Bengaluru as a place to conduct interviews. Your point deviates the intention of the post.
- srean 8y agoIts been 70 years since the British left, I wonder why the sudden resurgence to go back to pre-British names. Bengaluru was the name for the place prior to the British, but I would argue its the British that made 'Bangalore: the garden city' out of it, that touch still remains although diminishing everyday.
- simula67 8y agoI think this is particularly uncharitable. YC is probably planning to invest in companies in India, we should be more charitable and not be unnecessarily antagonistic. Also, I think this is unrealistic. Do you expect others to properly use the names of all cities ? For example : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozhikode https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozhikode. The 'zh' sound is not present outside of a few South Indian languages. It is OK if others call it Calicut IMO EDIT: It seems the OP has edited the comment to make it more polite. Thanks OP.
- Uhhrrr 8y agoIt would help your case if you were to write, "It has been 14 years since the name changed officially, and I would appreciate it if people stopped using the anglicized name of our city."
- seeker_ 8y agoSeriously, you want to do this here? This is a hackernews thread not an equivalent on twitter or FB.
- GordonS 8y agoI know a lot of Indians in Mumbai - most of them still call it Bombay!
- absolute_hacker 8y agoA day in the life of an Indian tech guy - excitingly clicks a HackerNews link relevant to India - "YC Interviews in India"! Finds a flame war on Bangalore vs Bangaluru - wait what? True Story!!
- rococode 8y agoWith YC China in the works and now interviews being held in India, it looks like YC is making a strong push to get a solid foothold in two obviously huge markets that have fairly weak Western presence. Seems like a smart move, it'll definitely be interesting to see what YC looks like 10 years from now.
- NTDF9 8y agoWell looks like YC is stepping up their game to get a bite of the future.
- gauravjain13 8y agoByte, you mean?
- samravshanov 8y agoMeans a slice of pizza/future
- dbxgiri 8y agoI think he was trying to be sarcastic.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- coder006 8y agoIt's amazing to see how people are fighting over city names on a YC thread. Just amazing! When we have problems like climate change and global warming to solve, please by all means let's first decide the name of the city!
- ai_ia 8y agoTo remind you, people also fight over if Thanos was right on the internet. Not everyone is supposed to talk about the big problems like climate change all the time. That's kind of boring. My two cents though.
- lalith_c 8y agoycombinator shouldn’t be the medium to discuss non technology period.
- captn3m0 8y agoNice to see YC doing this.
- jmspring 8y agoGood to see YC expand. I’m curious, though, if innovation ramps up in the startup space in both China and India, will there be a decrease in demand for immigration to the states? My own experience across the visa spectrum is some want to move here permanently, some want to make their stake here and return back to their home country, some want to come here and build new businesses. I don’t mean it as A discussion about immigration but more about one of innovation. We keep hearing, despite obvious growth in other regions, SV is still ground zero for new companies.
- keerthiko 8y agoSV is ground zero and probably will be for some time, but the forces of present immigration climate are unlike it has ever been in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if it topples SV's position as the innovation hub in the near future. In the past, immigration was a minor barrier comparable to other barriers founders and innovators face regularly, but one that needed to be overcome. Today, especially with the freedom of the global internet infrastructure together nationalist political climates, immigration is starting to look like a less and less savory distraction that doesn't even justify the effort needed to overcome it.
- winter_blue 8y agoThe immigration situation for skilled/educated workers, has to my knowledge, always been extremely bad in the US. Right now, it's gotten worse to another level, but it's not like it was anywhere close to good before. There is no founder visa. A few rare people (including you) have managed to get the O-1 visa; but that's usually an extraordinary difficult endeavor. Even getting a new H-1B is incredibly hard, with your chance of winning in the lottery less than 40%, and there being a significantly long (~7 months) before you can even start working. Moreover, you're prohibited on having majority control over your company on an H-1B, and need to ensure there's a board that can fire you. So there's that. Then there's getting an EB-1 approved ... I don't how you managed to get it, but kudos to you on that. From what I've read, it's incredibly difficult, and usually an order of magnitude more difficult than getting an O-1. Immigration guides often say you need win the Nobel Prize in order to qualify for it. But I've also heard luck plays a huge factor -- in terms of who your adjudicating officer is. Anyways, there's very little info out there (on the interwebs) that talks about how to succeed with an O-1 or EB-1 application. (It would be great if you could write about it.)
- justforfunhere 8y agoDoes someone who only has an idea, but not done the implementation yet ( or not production ready ) can apply??
- ignoramous 8y agoYes, though stage creep is a real problem and some applicants show up not just with a prototype but revenue as well. Imho, to make most out of YC demo day, you'd have to have something concrete ready, and so it helps to have started working before having interviewed with YC.
- adora 8y agoUnless you just came up with the idea, it's useful to have talked to users already and/or have some data that the idea is good. Having revenue or being launched already is not a requirement.
- raghavkhanna 8y agoGreat initiative! This should encourage more Indian/ SE Asian founders to apply, since they no longer have to think about the time spent on the arduous US visa application process - and can instead keep the focus on building their company. Kudos to YC!
- jkaplowitz 8y agoYC is still requiring accepted founders to be in California during the in-person program. But yes, they don't have to deal with the US visa process for the Bangalore interviews, which is an improvement.
- ignoramous 8y agoVCs and Angels have picked up investments in India [0], and as a result, as far as India is concerned, YC has missed out on Unicorns, though, Razorpay/Cleartax/Meesho could be Unicorns in time. [0] https://trak.in/india-startup-funding-investment-2015/ https://trak.in/india-startup-funding-investment-2015/ (URL says 2015, but the data is latest)
- gajju3588 8y agoFor any company based out of India, working on solving problems for Indian consumers, I see very less value in applying to YC. First of all their advisors have very little or no idea about how does it work in Indian context [because haven't done startups in this area], which mind you is very different and more complicated then valley.
- timwaagh 8y agoplease come to europe too :)
- dalbasal 8y agoInteresting! I'm a big fan of pg's essays. From my pov, it was the "golden age" of blogging^. Essays like "black swan farming," "high res-society" were fascinating, and tied abstract ideas aabout startups, investing and the world to the parcticalities of how YC works. I found it fascinating. PG did address startup hubs, why "YC of _place_" was a problematice idea and other reasons why YC is centralized where it is. But... PG wrote about a lot of ideas. Some might lead you to the opposite conclusion, maybe increasingly as the startup industry has grown. Ramen profitable, for example, could be a totally different proposition in India. "High resolution" is an idea that I think at some scale needs to happen outside of SV. Since those essays, YC has scaled. That could put new possibilities on the table. Many of the reasons startups hub are fixable with scale. I realize this is just interviews, but I reckon that "just" is not just a just. ^Another great example was joel on software and the stack overflow podcast. You could watch Joel and Jeff's abstract ideas about (eg) "social user interface" and such be implmented in software.
- iddan 8y agoIs Tel Aviv next?
- giarc 8y agoI don't quite understand this move? Was there a big issue with founders getting accepted for an interview but then not being able to travel to the US for the interview?
- sarthakjain 8y agoUS visas
- giarc 8y agoBut for the interview they would just need a travel visa right? If they were accepted they would still need to travel to the US and have the same issue they did prior?
- winter_blue 8y agoYes, they would just need a visitor visa (B1/B2/VWP-ESTA). I think YC is conducting interviews in India mainly for convenience. Why force a 100 potential founders to fly to the U.S. to attend an interview -- which would probably cost for flight+hotel around $1500 per person, so that's $150,000 wasted. Not to mention besides the money, there's time wasted as well -- the time flying in airplane (34 hours -- 17 hours each way). It's simply economically, from both a monetary and time perspective, more efficient to avoid unnecessary travel for an interview. Moreover, there's also the fact that it's practically impossible to move to the U.S. as a founder of a company (there's no visa for founders). People from a select few countries (that the US has trade treaties with) and who have $100k in savings just lying around might be able to self-sponsor a E-2, but I'm most YC-funded founders probably don't qualify for this either. Especially not founders from India, since India is not a E-2 visa treaty country.
- sarthakjain 8y agoTypically you have ~2 weeks between being notified and interview. Have personally witnessed a lot of teams where one founder couldn't make the interview in the time frame. For the actual YC program both the invitation letter is much stronger, you probably have an established US entity and a strong reason to be in the US. Less likely you get denied a Visa.
- absolute_hack 8y agoA day in the life of an Indian tech guy - excitingly clicks a HackerNews link relevant to India - "YC Interviews in India"! Finds a flame war on Bangalore vs Bangaluru - wait what? True Story!!
- LeicaLatte 8y agoVery cool
- throwycq6743 8y agoPolitically incorrect question Who will be doing the interviews? Typical YC partners or Indian YC partners. Don’t trust the Indian partners to not be discriminatory against minorities, women, lgbtqi etc founders. Things are bad here. Being openly gay gets you fired.
- ozzyman700 8y agoWho will be doing the interviews?
- christopher8827 8y agoIt would be great if YC expanded to the Asia-Pacific region... somewhere easy for Aussies to reach/apply/interview like Singapore.