4 ms·

I am not so sure how much of your post really applies to this scenario. Zoho has been around practically for as long as Salesforce has and they have always bee

I am not so sure how much of your post really applies to this scenario. Zoho has been around practically for as long as Salesforce has and they have always been the scrappy bootstrapped company that in my opinion focused on the small to medium sized business. MSFT is at such a large size that tailoring the selling experience to a smaller market does not move the needle enough to make a difference for the business. With ~200x the revenue of Zoho, it just might not make sense to focus on these smaller markets and being aggressive on pricing. American companies do not need to localize or build cultural competency when it does not move the needle for them and I don't think we lost that by being dependent on China. I am not even certain how China comes into play on that front beyond outsourcing of manufacturing and cheap imports. Even for booming new economies like Nigeria, the overall benefit for larger companies is so small that its most likely not worth the effort for them to go down that path.

alephnerd 3y ago
Zoho would have been American if Sridhar's visa process wasn't messed up. He used to live in Pleasanton like the rest of the Zoho founders, but they were looking at a multiyear GC backlog, so Sridhar decided to return to India. I'd argue it's one of several pieces that show an issue of insular pigheadedness American institutions have. This was fine when the rest of the world was much poorer than the US, but that delta has shrunk massively. > American companies do not need to localize or build cultural competency when it does not move the needle for them I agree to a certain extent, but there have been plenty of major fumbles in markets with large TAMs (Uber in ASEAN, Ford in India) that if there was a bit more localized market research done, they would have done decently well. Korean, Chinese, Indian, etc companies are increasingly becoming competitive, and American companies cannot rest on their laurels.
- chucke1992 3y ago
  The thing is that with India - for example - it is a relatively cheap market and those can afford expensive stuff, but western stuff anyway. Also regarding visa - well there are more indians in the visa queue than probably multiple countries combined. If they make it as fast as other countries - indians will just move in millions and millions simply due to sheer amount of people they have.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > those can afford expensive stuff, but western stuff anyway Western, sure. American, not really. There's a reason American brands like Harley-Davidson and Ford quit India, but Western (NATO+) brands like Toyota and Hyundai thrive in India, and Indian conglomerates like Tata acquired prestige western brands like Jaguar Land Rover. Same thing with China and the acquisition of MG, Volvo, Lotus, etc. > Also regarding visa - well there are more indians in the visa queue than probably multiple countries combined. If they make it as fast as other countries - indians will just move in millions and millions simply due to sheer amount of people they have. True, but there needs to be a middle path between being selective but also attracting the cream of the crop. Take a look at the placement statistics of IIT graduates nowadays (2017 onwards) - barely 5-10% choose to immigrate abroad now, ad it's a similar trend in mid-tier Indian programs as well. America's innovation ecosystem only worked because we were able to attract the best and the brightest from Russia, India, China, etc. Without that level of openness, we fall to the same pit of stagnation that Mainland Europe, the UK, and Japan fell into. ------ Both these points are examples of the insular mindset that is going to doom the US. There is this assumption that we have always been the best and always will be the best. It was immigrants or the children of immigrants like Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Fermi, von Neumann, etc that ushered the Atomic and Information Age, and it was immigrants like Hinton, le Cunn, Bengio, etc that ushered in the current ML revolution. Already, a lot of my Chinese and Indian friends who did their PhDs in EE or CS at programs like Stanford or MIT have started returning to China and India because they find the visa process demeaning and very backlogged.
    - chucke1992 3y ago
      > Western, sure. American, not really. The thing is that I am not sure what american - that is not software services and some PC hardware - is even sold outside of USA. Coca Cola and McDonalds? But aside that I haven't see much american stuff even in Europe. It is usually german home appliances, local food, nestle (swiss) etc. > True, but there needs to be a middle path between being selective but also attracting the cream of the crop. Take a look at the placement statistics of IIT graduates nowadays (2017 onwards) - barely 5-10% choose to immigrate abroad now, ad it's a similar trend in mid-tier Indian programs as well. The problem is that even 5% is a lot. Like Indian's population is probably 2-3 times bigger than the whole europe. My own country has less than 9m people and my friend got his USA passport after 5 years only... > America's innovation ecosystem only worked because we were able to attract the best and the brightest from Russia, India, China, etc. Without that level of openness, we fall to the same pit of stagnation that Mainland Europe, the UK, and Japan fell into. One of the reason for western stagnation is just the amount of regulations. That's why heavily regulated industries are usually quite successful in Europe (like pharmaceutical companies), but garage startups? Not really. Sweden is basically the only exception. And UK (every 10 years lol). > Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Fermi, von Neumann People like this are exceptions really. Though there are always trends over the years when some countries produce more talents than the other. It is like there is a beacon shining at one point and a lot of talents are born close to each other.
- infecto 3y ago
  This is really is opening too many arguments. Sure American institutions have insular pigheadedness. Indian/Vietnamese/Chinese/Korean institutions are filled with corruptions and nepotism. We don’t know for sure Zoho would have been an American company, I would almost argue that their success is because they are in India and can most likely build their product at drastically lower costs than in the US. This is probably one of the reasons they can target SMB, including emerging markets in local currencies. No doubt localization would have helped but it’s again one of those things where there are too many angles to really accept what is the correct or incorrect path. Uber, perhaps it was that insular pigheadedness you like to mention or perhaps they were really dedicated on having a single app, with a familiar process globally. Grab is indeed hyper local but also drastically different depending on the region your in and is a much different experience than what Uber provides. I could not speak on the Ford in India but on the flip side Tata could never make it in more developed markets probably with the lack of safety.

alephnerd 3y ago

Zoho would have been American if Sridhar's visa process wasn't messed up. He used to live in Pleasanton like the rest of the Zoho founders, but they were looking at a multiyear GC backlog, so Sridhar decided to return to India. I'd argue it's one of several pieces that show an issue of insular pigheadedness American institutions have. This was fine when the rest of the world was much poorer than the US, but that delta has shrunk massively. > American companies do not need to localize or build cultural competency when it does not move the needle for them I agree to a certain extent, but there have been plenty of major fumbles in markets with large TAMs (Uber in ASEAN, Ford in India) that if there was a bit more localized market research done, they would have done decently well. Korean, Chinese, Indian, etc companies are increasingly becoming competitive, and American companies cannot rest on their laurels.

chucke1992 3y ago
The thing is that with India - for example - it is a relatively cheap market and those can afford expensive stuff, but western stuff anyway. Also regarding visa - well there are more indians in the visa queue than probably multiple countries combined. If they make it as fast as other countries - indians will just move in millions and millions simply due to sheer amount of people they have.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > those can afford expensive stuff, but western stuff anyway Western, sure. American, not really. There's a reason American brands like Harley-Davidson and Ford quit India, but Western (NATO+) brands like Toyota and Hyundai thrive in India, and Indian conglomerates like Tata acquired prestige western brands like Jaguar Land Rover. Same thing with China and the acquisition of MG, Volvo, Lotus, etc. > Also regarding visa - well there are more indians in the visa queue than probably multiple countries combined. If they make it as fast as other countries - indians will just move in millions and millions simply due to sheer amount of people they have. True, but there needs to be a middle path between being selective but also attracting the cream of the crop. Take a look at the placement statistics of IIT graduates nowadays (2017 onwards) - barely 5-10% choose to immigrate abroad now, ad it's a similar trend in mid-tier Indian programs as well. America's innovation ecosystem only worked because we were able to attract the best and the brightest from Russia, India, China, etc. Without that level of openness, we fall to the same pit of stagnation that Mainland Europe, the UK, and Japan fell into. ------ Both these points are examples of the insular mindset that is going to doom the US. There is this assumption that we have always been the best and always will be the best. It was immigrants or the children of immigrants like Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Fermi, von Neumann, etc that ushered the Atomic and Information Age, and it was immigrants like Hinton, le Cunn, Bengio, etc that ushered in the current ML revolution. Already, a lot of my Chinese and Indian friends who did their PhDs in EE or CS at programs like Stanford or MIT have started returning to China and India because they find the visa process demeaning and very backlogged.
  - chucke1992 3y ago
    > Western, sure. American, not really. The thing is that I am not sure what american - that is not software services and some PC hardware - is even sold outside of USA. Coca Cola and McDonalds? But aside that I haven't see much american stuff even in Europe. It is usually german home appliances, local food, nestle (swiss) etc. > True, but there needs to be a middle path between being selective but also attracting the cream of the crop. Take a look at the placement statistics of IIT graduates nowadays (2017 onwards) - barely 5-10% choose to immigrate abroad now, ad it's a similar trend in mid-tier Indian programs as well. The problem is that even 5% is a lot. Like Indian's population is probably 2-3 times bigger than the whole europe. My own country has less than 9m people and my friend got his USA passport after 5 years only... > America's innovation ecosystem only worked because we were able to attract the best and the brightest from Russia, India, China, etc. Without that level of openness, we fall to the same pit of stagnation that Mainland Europe, the UK, and Japan fell into. One of the reason for western stagnation is just the amount of regulations. That's why heavily regulated industries are usually quite successful in Europe (like pharmaceutical companies), but garage startups? Not really. Sweden is basically the only exception. And UK (every 10 years lol). > Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Fermi, von Neumann People like this are exceptions really. Though there are always trends over the years when some countries produce more talents than the other. It is like there is a beacon shining at one point and a lot of talents are born close to each other.
infecto 3y ago
This is really is opening too many arguments. Sure American institutions have insular pigheadedness. Indian/Vietnamese/Chinese/Korean institutions are filled with corruptions and nepotism. We don’t know for sure Zoho would have been an American company, I would almost argue that their success is because they are in India and can most likely build their product at drastically lower costs than in the US. This is probably one of the reasons they can target SMB, including emerging markets in local currencies. No doubt localization would have helped but it’s again one of those things where there are too many angles to really accept what is the correct or incorrect path. Uber, perhaps it was that insular pigheadedness you like to mention or perhaps they were really dedicated on having a single app, with a familiar process globally. Grab is indeed hyper local but also drastically different depending on the region your in and is a much different experience than what Uber provides. I could not speak on the Ford in India but on the flip side Tata could never make it in more developed markets probably with the lack of safety.