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Another Indian-born tech CEO? It's incredible. IBM joins Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Nokia, and Harman in this regard. Also, MasterCard and PepsiCo (until 2018).

by krn 7y ago

Another Indian-born tech CEO? It's incredible. IBM joins Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Nokia, and Harman in this regard. Also, MasterCard and PepsiCo (until 2018). I wonder how much it's a cultural thing.

cryptozeus 7y ago
In business, ultimate bias is money. Who ever brings in more at the same time saves on expense.
tinyhouse 7y ago
It's indeed impressive. However, from working with many Indians, I think they succeed mainly because there are so many of them. They are also great socially and speak English, which gives them an edge over asians. Professionaly they have many problems.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post racial flamebait, or whatever this is, to HN. It just leads to boring flamewars, which we're trying to avoid on this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
programmertote 7y ago
This is a biased, but honest observation that I'd like to share. I've been working for a big corp for about 5 years now. I was born in a SE Asian country and came to the US for college. I have worked with a lot of India-born people. As a fellow foreigner and as an Asian, I can tell that more often than not Indian people are bolder and more aggressive in asking for what they want (e.g., one of my Indian colleague asked for salary raise and the permission to go back to India in December for a month every year as part of his negotiation when he applied and got offer from another company; what he told me was simple, "It's my responsibility to ask. It's my boss' task to refuse or accept.") On top of that, some (not everyone; some are meek/introvert like myself). Because of their boldness, Indian people seem to be more successful at making themselves more visible, which is very important in corporate culture to get ahead. On top of that, some of them are pretty clever at courting favor of their superiors and/or playing office politics. I have seen quite a few of my peers/acquaintances from India who climbed corporate ladder pretty fast, so I'm not surprised they are doing well in terms of representation in C-level roles.
- kamaal 7y ago
  >>On top of that, some of them are pretty clever at courting favor of their superiors and/or playing office politics. As a fellow Indian myself, let me assure you the biggest victims of this are the remaining other fellow Indian themselves. Things like this are the biggest reason why I wish I had a chance to settle and work in the US.
  - johnhughesco 7y ago
    I believe Denpok from Silicon Valley is representative
- xboxnolifes 7y ago
  This followed my own similar observations with Indian people that I know. They, more often than not, are more confident and straightforward in their actions whether it be how they honestly feel or not.
  - bonzer 7y ago
    I’ve seen (while working at Google) that on paper they seemed to have lots of “education” and in meetings the ones in management were overly confident and talked the talk but in 1:1 rarely did they know anything that wasn’t in a book, jargon or memorized. Rarely did they think up their own ideas or challenged the status quo. My manager was from India. He told me to make my solutions look more complicated and more lines of code to “make it on his team”. Engineers I found amazing, but once they decide to go the management path stay away, they would step over and on anyone, claim ownership for others ideas. not in a productive, supportive, work hard way, but a calculating negative way. Been doing this a long time, and every culture has differences but only with Indians in management from India did I feel I had to watch my back. Nepotism was so obvious I’m shocked it isn’t researched more. Maybe something with that ridiculously stupid and inhuman caste system. Ymmv
    - terminaljunkid 7y ago
      Caste system doesn't seem to be a reason. People here just want shortest way for something, not much ethical considerations or whatever. People study CSE mostly because it pays well, despite having literally no interest in this. People study 4 years sacrificing everything, in a rote learning way, to get into IITs. People demand reservations for government jobs and education on whatever basis imaginable. They just want some end at all means. 80% of Indian people are shit.. source: I am an Indian.
PandaRider 7y ago
I attended an interview of a major non-tech CEO and he attributed the cultural attitude of Jugaad [0] as the reason why so many CEOs are of Indian descent. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
- pieterk 7y ago
  Makes a lot of sense, an infectious can-do attitude as it may. https://www.reddit.com/r/redneckengineering/top/?t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/redneckengineering/top/?t=all
- sbmthakur 7y ago
  I don't like to be a downer. But this Jugaad (or hack your way) attitude is one of the reasons why we (Indians) haven't become good at manufacturing stuff (unlike China). The world needs more solutions than hacks.
  - Miraste 7y ago
    I don't think Jugaad is a significant factor in that disparity. China has a similiar, and arguably much worse, widespread philosophy called Cha bu duo (close enough)[1], and it doesn't seem to slow them down much. [1] https://medium.com/@ItsPhilipChang/cha-bu-duo-is-not-what-you-think-it-means-32084cb3cde2 https://medium.com/@ItsPhilipChang/cha-bu-duo-is-not-what-yo...
freepor 7y ago
As an Indian person I frankly don’t think there’s anything special about Indians. The immigrants you meet are not representative of the country as a whole... in India you will meet plenty of lazy imbeciles. It’s just that India has a vast population of technically educated people, and in contrast to China, these people have grown up in a heavily British-influenced society (esp. language) so they integrate in the US and UK better than Chinese.

by krn 7y ago

cryptozeus 7y ago

In business, ultimate bias is money. Who ever brings in more at the same time saves on expense.

tinyhouse 7y ago

It's indeed impressive. However, from working with many Indians, I think they succeed mainly because there are so many of them. They are also great socially and speak English, which gives them an edge over asians. Professionaly they have many problems.

dang 7y ago
Please don't post racial flamebait, or whatever this is, to HN. It just leads to boring flamewars, which we're trying to avoid on this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

programmertote 7y ago

This is a biased, but honest observation that I'd like to share. I've been working for a big corp for about 5 years now. I was born in a SE Asian country and came to the US for college. I have worked with a lot of India-born people. As a fellow foreigner and as an Asian, I can tell that more often than not Indian people are bolder and more aggressive in asking for what they want (e.g., one of my Indian colleague asked for salary raise and the permission to go back to India in December for a month every year as part of his negotiation when he applied and got offer from another company; what he told me was simple, "It's my responsibility to ask. It's my boss' task to refuse or accept.") On top of that, some (not everyone; some are meek/introvert like myself). Because of their boldness, Indian people seem to be more successful at making themselves more visible, which is very important in corporate culture to get ahead. On top of that, some of them are pretty clever at courting favor of their superiors and/or playing office politics. I have seen quite a few of my peers/acquaintances from India who climbed corporate ladder pretty fast, so I'm not surprised they are doing well in terms of representation in C-level roles.

kamaal 7y ago
>>On top of that, some of them are pretty clever at courting favor of their superiors and/or playing office politics. As a fellow Indian myself, let me assure you the biggest victims of this are the remaining other fellow Indian themselves. Things like this are the biggest reason why I wish I had a chance to settle and work in the US.
- johnhughesco 7y ago
  I believe Denpok from Silicon Valley is representative
xboxnolifes 7y ago
This followed my own similar observations with Indian people that I know. They, more often than not, are more confident and straightforward in their actions whether it be how they honestly feel or not.
- bonzer 7y ago
  I’ve seen (while working at Google) that on paper they seemed to have lots of “education” and in meetings the ones in management were overly confident and talked the talk but in 1:1 rarely did they know anything that wasn’t in a book, jargon or memorized. Rarely did they think up their own ideas or challenged the status quo. My manager was from India. He told me to make my solutions look more complicated and more lines of code to “make it on his team”. Engineers I found amazing, but once they decide to go the management path stay away, they would step over and on anyone, claim ownership for others ideas. not in a productive, supportive, work hard way, but a calculating negative way. Been doing this a long time, and every culture has differences but only with Indians in management from India did I feel I had to watch my back. Nepotism was so obvious I’m shocked it isn’t researched more. Maybe something with that ridiculously stupid and inhuman caste system. Ymmv
  - terminaljunkid 7y ago
    Caste system doesn't seem to be a reason. People here just want shortest way for something, not much ethical considerations or whatever. People study CSE mostly because it pays well, despite having literally no interest in this. People study 4 years sacrificing everything, in a rote learning way, to get into IITs. People demand reservations for government jobs and education on whatever basis imaginable. They just want some end at all means. 80% of Indian people are shit.. source: I am an Indian.

PandaRider 7y ago

I attended an interview of a major non-tech CEO and he attributed the cultural attitude of Jugaad [0] as the reason why so many CEOs are of Indian descent. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad

pieterk 7y ago
Makes a lot of sense, an infectious can-do attitude as it may. https://www.reddit.com/r/redneckengineering/top/?t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/redneckengineering/top/?t=all
sbmthakur 7y ago
I don't like to be a downer. But this Jugaad (or hack your way) attitude is one of the reasons why we (Indians) haven't become good at manufacturing stuff (unlike China). The world needs more solutions than hacks.
- Miraste 7y ago
  I don't think Jugaad is a significant factor in that disparity. China has a similiar, and arguably much worse, widespread philosophy called Cha bu duo (close enough)[1], and it doesn't seem to slow them down much. [1] https://medium.com/@ItsPhilipChang/cha-bu-duo-is-not-what-you-think-it-means-32084cb3cde2 https://medium.com/@ItsPhilipChang/cha-bu-duo-is-not-what-yo...

freepor 7y ago

As an Indian person I frankly don’t think there’s anything special about Indians. The immigrants you meet are not representative of the country as a whole... in India you will meet plenty of lazy imbeciles. It’s just that India has a vast population of technically educated people, and in contrast to China, these people have grown up in a heavily British-influenced society (esp. language) so they integrate in the US and UK better than Chinese.