3 ms·

The answer to it is quite easy if you know anything about India. Most Tech CEOs immigrated to the US in the 80-90s to study a not so cool academic area of scien

by screye 5y ago

The answer to it is quite easy if you know anything about India. Most Tech CEOs immigrated to the US in the 80-90s to study a not so cool academic area of science. Most backwards classes never had the wealth to sit on a plane, let alone study in the US. The pursuit of high positions in someone else's company is looked down upon in merchant communities. Additionally, the forward castes were among the only ones to know English well enough due to history in the British Civil service. (A similar thing happened to the parsis) So, CEO of a tech company is the kind of position that rewards academic pursuit of knowledge, a secondary emphasis on money (for your early years at least), being brought up in privilege and a kind of society that views CEO as the highest status post. The Brahmins satisfy this criteria perfectly. Wait for a generation or two. The most privileged of India are actually staying home. The American dream is a middle class pursuit and the demographics of South Asians at tech companies are rapidly changing. Sauce- a non-forward class Indian immigrant tech dude ______ One new type of discrimination that's going unnoticed is the 'IIT' bias. More and more, top universities use being an IITian as the badge of honor for upperclass Indians. This is visible among the students as well. They often form cliques rather quickly. BitS, IIIT and NIT folks may get honorary entry to these groups if they are 'cool' enough. But, if you went to a no-name school in India, you are always expected to prove yourself in a manner that IITians never are. The removal of GREs for admissions is making this divide more concrete. It is a shame, because the IIT-JEE is a very specific type of examination that requires sacrificing around 3-5+ years of your most formative years for a low probability chance at entering an elite institution (The true geniuses, a minority of the IIT student body are exceptions.). I know a large number of incredibly talented students at mediocre universities with zero avenues for pursuing research or adding some solid achievements to their resume, because the rich keep getting richer, and all the opportunities flow into IITs and some of the other aforementioned colleges.

strikelaserclaw 5y ago
9 people in my family went to IIT, NONE of them are even close to being geniuses, what they are are people with above average intelligence who sacrificed their childhood to grind exams.
- screye 5y ago
  Yep, that sounds about right. On balance, every math genius I knew cracked IIT top 1000 (necessary to get CS). But most people who I knew got in, were much more likely to be hard workers rather than geniuses. Not a symmetrical relationship. The majority of IITians are insane hardworkers and give up a lot of personal development to get there.
throwawaysea 5y ago
> Most backwards classes never had the wealth to sit on a plane, let alone study in the US. For others here, backward classes here is apparently a term for demographic groups that are given discriminatory preferences in Indian law, for example reserved quotas at universities or minimum promotion quotas for different groups. But I also read in articles that came up, that the majority of Brahmins live in poverty, and that various forms of reservation (discriminatory preferences) can actually set aside a super majority of seats in various institutions for other groups. That sounds like an incredibly biased system and anti-meritocratic. It also doesn’t sound to me like forward classes have wealth to ‘sit on a plane’ either.
- boxed 5y ago
  You are confused abiut quite a few things: - a few poor upper caste families does not diminish the wealth and privilege of the vast majority of that caste - the majority of INDIANS live in poverty so obviously a lot of upper caste Indians do too - living in poverty or not isn't the only advantage of being upper caste Lower caste people can literally be murdered and the police won't even care. Poverty is one thing, but being untouchable in India can literally mean you are outside the law with the same rights as a rock on the ground. Not formally of course, but in practice. Watch this video for a sample of someone who had the luck to even get his story heard: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedstatesofindia/comments/m6s3ey/if_this_is_not_about_caste_then_what_is_it/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedstatesofindia/comments/m6s3ey...
  - chakkepolja 5y ago
    > a few poor upper caste families does not diminish the wealth and privilege of the vast majority of that caste Majority of upper castes don't have the wealth to sit on plane. Few of them do. Funny thing is often Brahmins (preistly caste) and warrior castes have less wealth and influence than merchant castes.

by screye 5y ago

strikelaserclaw 5y ago

9 people in my family went to IIT, NONE of them are even close to being geniuses, what they are are people with above average intelligence who sacrificed their childhood to grind exams.

screye 5y ago
Yep, that sounds about right. On balance, every math genius I knew cracked IIT top 1000 (necessary to get CS). But most people who I knew got in, were much more likely to be hard workers rather than geniuses. Not a symmetrical relationship. The majority of IITians are insane hardworkers and give up a lot of personal development to get there.

throwawaysea 5y ago

> Most backwards classes never had the wealth to sit on a plane, let alone study in the US. For others here, backward classes here is apparently a term for demographic groups that are given discriminatory preferences in Indian law, for example reserved quotas at universities or minimum promotion quotas for different groups. But I also read in articles that came up, that the majority of Brahmins live in poverty, and that various forms of reservation (discriminatory preferences) can actually set aside a super majority of seats in various institutions for other groups. That sounds like an incredibly biased system and anti-meritocratic. It also doesn’t sound to me like forward classes have wealth to ‘sit on a plane’ either.

boxed 5y ago
You are confused abiut quite a few things: - a few poor upper caste families does not diminish the wealth and privilege of the vast majority of that caste - the majority of INDIANS live in poverty so obviously a lot of upper caste Indians do too - living in poverty or not isn't the only advantage of being upper caste Lower caste people can literally be murdered and the police won't even care. Poverty is one thing, but being untouchable in India can literally mean you are outside the law with the same rights as a rock on the ground. Not formally of course, but in practice. Watch this video for a sample of someone who had the luck to even get his story heard: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedstatesofindia/comments/m6s3ey/if_this_is_not_about_caste_then_what_is_it/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedstatesofindia/comments/m6s3ey...
- chakkepolja 5y ago
  > a few poor upper caste families does not diminish the wealth and privilege of the vast majority of that caste Majority of upper castes don't have the wealth to sit on plane. Few of them do. Funny thing is often Brahmins (preistly caste) and warrior castes have less wealth and influence than merchant castes.