6 ms·

> Mukhesh Ambani who's got a good connect with the current ruling Government To be fair, Mukesh has got good connections everywhere. He is India's most powerfu

by screye 6y ago

> Mukhesh Ambani who's got a good connect with the current ruling Government To be fair, Mukesh has got good connections everywhere. He is India's most powerful person. Amitabh and the Shahrukh (some of the world's richest actors, both half billionaires) both volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding as a show of appreciation. If a man can command the most powerful of his country to such level of willful subservience, then every Govt. will try to curry favor with him. I will add, that while his intentions might be entirely selfish, the pace at which Jio was able to bring affordable 4G to the whole country is incredibly empowering for rural / small town India. That being said, adding money to the pool of what is quickly becoming a monopoly is not a "fund to digitize America" as Pichai put it.

derefr 6y ago
> volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding ... subservience I don't know about you, but when I hear "working as a server at a wedding attended by many powerful people", I don't think "subservience", I think "unique opportunity to make connections, and to potentially snoop insider information."
- viklove 6y ago
  You must not know of Amitabh and the Shahrukh -- they're not some smalltime actors that need to get a leg up. This would be like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt offering to be servers at Jeff Bezos' daughters wedding. It's absurdly subservient.
  - mycodebreaks 6y ago
    Do not ignore cultural differences. If you see such an activity as a job, then you would arrive at a conclusion like yours. In India, it's common for hosts to serve food as a sign of respect to their guests. Close friends and family of hosts also join. This only showed the closeness of the relationships among Mukesh and other stars. Seeing it as a subservient act isn't accurate, no big star would sign up if it were so.
    - TLightful 6y ago
      This is correct. I'm not Indian but my wife is and I've observed it many times as an insider "outsider".
    - xmprt 6y ago
      To give another example, often times, the servers for these weddings aren't people you pay but rather your close friends and family.
  - vinay_ys 6y ago
    Subservient isn't the right word I think. A lot of rich and famous attended the Ambani wedding events – Clinton, Huffington etc and a lot of celebrities from world over. Beyonce did a show too. So did a lot of Bollywood celebrities. These celebrities do paid gigs at these ultra rich wedding parties. https://www.wmagazine.com/story/isha-ambani-wedding-india-hillary-clinton-beyonce/ https://www.wmagazine.com/story/isha-ambani-wedding-india-hi...
    - viklove 6y ago
      Attending an event as a guest is very, very different than attending an event as a server...
      - newen 6y ago
        Serving in many Indian weddings can be done by friends and family. It's like showing that you're very close to the family. Not too long ago, it used to be that family and friends would get together to cook for the wedding.
  - ponker 6y ago
    Not really, people whose status is beyond question can do stuff like this just because they feel like it. I attended a high school play at a fancy private school in Texas and to my surprise the parking lot attendant was Michael Dell, who had a kid in the school. Nobody said “yuk yuk Dell is such a loser he worked the parking lot.”
- bg24 6y ago
  Well said.
- tuesday20 6y ago
  I am not sure you comprehend the fame and reach of the actors mentioned. They don’t need connections, they are super famous in their own right. Also note, Amitabh is in his late seventies. I doubt he is interested in connections at his age.
xxpor 6y ago
Random language usage question: in India, if someone is referred to as a billionaire, would that be in terms of rupees or dollars? (1 billion INR is ~13.3 million USD) Or does it essentially never come up because a typical Indian would use lakh/crore instead? Is there's something like a "lakh croreaire"?
- flak48 6y ago
  > Or does it essentially never come up because a typical Indian would use lakh/crore instead? Exactly. USD is almost always implied when million/billion is used
  - hcnews 6y ago
    Yeah, for millionaire/billionaire the definition shifts to the western one. Mukesh was/is also top 10 richest globally I believe.
- vghaisas 6y ago
  Indians use "crorepati" for someone with a crore rupees. Interestingly, the Indian equivalent of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is "Kaun Banega Crorepati" (who will become a crorepati). As for millionaire/billionaire, imo it's hard to tell but on HN I would infer USD. (Amitabh Bachchan's net worth is ~$400M based on a quick search.)
  - psankar 6y ago
    > the Indian equivalent of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is "Kaun Banega Crorepati" The North Indian equivalent is called so. Atleast, In TN we have our own version of the show, based on the same "Crore" denomination but not thus called.
    - kumarharsh 6y ago
      What is this fetish by some people to always label things "North Indian"? It is a national show on a national television where the participants are from all around India (from Ladakh to Tamil Nadu, Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh).
mekoka 6y ago
> volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding as a show of appreciation. > can command the most powerful of his country to such level of willful subservience To me there's a disconnect between the two phrases. I don't think they were volunteering to humiliate themselves, but rather to show how close they were. Let's say hypothetically that Bill Gates had become really good pal with Jeff Bezos and that you went to an event that one of the two had organized and you saw the other serving the punch, would you say that he's being subservient?
paulpan 6y ago
I'm not familiar with Mukhesh Ambani or his reputation, but sounds like he's India's version of China's Jack Ma? Jack Ma and Alibaba came to the forefront due in part to his connections to the Chinese government. On the topic itself, it's unclear what Google's intentions are and how they could benefit from such an investment. $10B is not a big sum so is the purpose altruistic or as grease for other purposes?
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Companies aren't altruistic, their only purpose is to provide value to shareholders. That doesn't mean this is a greasing, it could just be google wanting more people connected to the internet so more people use their products.
  - cat199 6y ago
    > Companies aren't altruistic, their only purpose is to provide value to shareholders. Companies do whatever their owners tell them to do. What you are talking about one specific model of what some people think they should do and what purpose they should serve in society. A very popular and possibly even 'default' model, but only one of many. https://blog.corplaw.ie/bid/317212/Shareholder-Stakeholder-Theories-Of-Corporate-Governance https://blog.corplaw.ie/bid/317212/Shareholder-Stakeholder-T... etc that said, assuming altruism here even if there aren't immediately obvious benefits to the company would probably be a bit naive.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Unlike Jack, Mukesh's father started with Reliance Polyester then expanded the business. Mukesh took it to even greater heights.
- shadykiller 6y ago
  I wouldn't call Mukhesh Ambani as Jack Ma. He inherited a lot of wealth and more important, a lot of government connections. He can bend rules for e.g. his non-existent Jio University got the tag "Institution of Eminence" He gets foreign technology and just jumps in any sector with governments blessing. Be it oil and gas, infra projects or even telecom

by screye 6y ago

derefr 6y ago

> volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding ... subservience I don't know about you, but when I hear "working as a server at a wedding attended by many powerful people", I don't think "subservience", I think "unique opportunity to make connections, and to potentially snoop insider information."

viklove 6y ago
You must not know of Amitabh and the Shahrukh -- they're not some smalltime actors that need to get a leg up. This would be like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt offering to be servers at Jeff Bezos' daughters wedding. It's absurdly subservient.
- mycodebreaks 6y ago
  Do not ignore cultural differences. If you see such an activity as a job, then you would arrive at a conclusion like yours. In India, it's common for hosts to serve food as a sign of respect to their guests. Close friends and family of hosts also join. This only showed the closeness of the relationships among Mukesh and other stars. Seeing it as a subservient act isn't accurate, no big star would sign up if it were so.
  - TLightful 6y ago
    This is correct. I'm not Indian but my wife is and I've observed it many times as an insider "outsider".
  - xmprt 6y ago
    To give another example, often times, the servers for these weddings aren't people you pay but rather your close friends and family.
- vinay_ys 6y ago
  Subservient isn't the right word I think. A lot of rich and famous attended the Ambani wedding events – Clinton, Huffington etc and a lot of celebrities from world over. Beyonce did a show too. So did a lot of Bollywood celebrities. These celebrities do paid gigs at these ultra rich wedding parties. https://www.wmagazine.com/story/isha-ambani-wedding-india-hillary-clinton-beyonce/ https://www.wmagazine.com/story/isha-ambani-wedding-india-hi...
  - viklove 6y ago
    Attending an event as a guest is very, very different than attending an event as a server...
    - newen 6y ago
      Serving in many Indian weddings can be done by friends and family. It's like showing that you're very close to the family. Not too long ago, it used to be that family and friends would get together to cook for the wedding.
- ponker 6y ago
  Not really, people whose status is beyond question can do stuff like this just because they feel like it. I attended a high school play at a fancy private school in Texas and to my surprise the parking lot attendant was Michael Dell, who had a kid in the school. Nobody said “yuk yuk Dell is such a loser he worked the parking lot.”
bg24 6y ago
Well said.
tuesday20 6y ago
I am not sure you comprehend the fame and reach of the actors mentioned. They don’t need connections, they are super famous in their own right. Also note, Amitabh is in his late seventies. I doubt he is interested in connections at his age.

xxpor 6y ago

Random language usage question: in India, if someone is referred to as a billionaire, would that be in terms of rupees or dollars? (1 billion INR is ~13.3 million USD) Or does it essentially never come up because a typical Indian would use lakh/crore instead? Is there's something like a "lakh croreaire"?

flak48 6y ago
> Or does it essentially never come up because a typical Indian would use lakh/crore instead? Exactly. USD is almost always implied when million/billion is used
- hcnews 6y ago
  Yeah, for millionaire/billionaire the definition shifts to the western one. Mukesh was/is also top 10 richest globally I believe.
vghaisas 6y ago
Indians use "crorepati" for someone with a crore rupees. Interestingly, the Indian equivalent of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is "Kaun Banega Crorepati" (who will become a crorepati). As for millionaire/billionaire, imo it's hard to tell but on HN I would infer USD. (Amitabh Bachchan's net worth is ~$400M based on a quick search.)
- psankar 6y ago
  > the Indian equivalent of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is "Kaun Banega Crorepati" The North Indian equivalent is called so. Atleast, In TN we have our own version of the show, based on the same "Crore" denomination but not thus called.
  - kumarharsh 6y ago
    What is this fetish by some people to always label things "North Indian"? It is a national show on a national television where the participants are from all around India (from Ladakh to Tamil Nadu, Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh).

mekoka 6y ago

> volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding as a show of appreciation. > can command the most powerful of his country to such level of willful subservience To me there's a disconnect between the two phrases. I don't think they were volunteering to humiliate themselves, but rather to show how close they were. Let's say hypothetically that Bill Gates had become really good pal with Jeff Bezos and that you went to an event that one of the two had organized and you saw the other serving the punch, would you say that he's being subservient?

paulpan 6y ago

I'm not familiar with Mukhesh Ambani or his reputation, but sounds like he's India's version of China's Jack Ma? Jack Ma and Alibaba came to the forefront due in part to his connections to the Chinese government. On the topic itself, it's unclear what Google's intentions are and how they could benefit from such an investment. $10B is not a big sum so is the purpose altruistic or as grease for other purposes?

colinmhayes 6y ago
Companies aren't altruistic, their only purpose is to provide value to shareholders. That doesn't mean this is a greasing, it could just be google wanting more people connected to the internet so more people use their products.
- cat199 6y ago
  > Companies aren't altruistic, their only purpose is to provide value to shareholders. Companies do whatever their owners tell them to do. What you are talking about one specific model of what some people think they should do and what purpose they should serve in society. A very popular and possibly even 'default' model, but only one of many. https://blog.corplaw.ie/bid/317212/Shareholder-Stakeholder-Theories-Of-Corporate-Governance https://blog.corplaw.ie/bid/317212/Shareholder-Stakeholder-T... etc that said, assuming altruism here even if there aren't immediately obvious benefits to the company would probably be a bit naive.
mav3rick 6y ago
Unlike Jack, Mukesh's father started with Reliance Polyester then expanded the business. Mukesh took it to even greater heights.
shadykiller 6y ago
I wouldn't call Mukhesh Ambani as Jack Ma. He inherited a lot of wealth and more important, a lot of government connections. He can bend rules for e.g. his non-existent Jio University got the tag "Institution of Eminence" He gets foreign technology and just jumps in any sector with governments blessing. Be it oil and gas, infra projects or even telecom