If Google started in India !

Dr Venkatraman, Indian born US-based scientist wins Nobel Prize in chemistry, and undoubtedly makes our entire country proud, or does it ? One of the news guys asked him if such sort of a research was possible in India, he had to say that India lacks the facilities and has limitations for such sort of long term research projects. He also went ahead to say that if India does not invest now, it will place itself 10-20 years behind in harnessing such technology for better benefits. But is this the only issue – less infrastructure that hasn’t allowed a single company in India to come up with something that topples the tech world and keeps everyone watching. Is this the reason that prohibits research based product companies like google to come up in India – well there has to be more doesn’t it, what if Sergey Brin and Larry Page started out of India ;-) – lets try and see what the founders would have had to endure starting off through India -

1 > Writing on the Wall : While Larry and Sergey (lets call them L&S from here on ) were in their final years of graduation, lets say engineering, L&S would have had to defy the three ultimate career options that are written on the wall and continuously shown to almost all undergrad students here :

1>     Get a decent paying IT job.

2>      Give GRE and go to US.

3>     Become a full time MBA aspirant - CAT appearing professional - trust me, this is a career option.

I really don’t see anyone giving the students of their caliber the advice to go ahead for research. I don’t know how many engineering colleges here know that research can be a career option. Above all, they would have had to skip something that most of the colleges are formed for – placements. Is asked about their highlights, 99 out of 100 colleges in India would boast about placements. This think is actually global, but it should be more of a choice than a mandatory religious activity in colleges.

2> Peers : When google started, a whole lot of peers from Stanford picked it up in no time, understood it and started publicizing it. It must have been a perfect cross cultural and varied bunch of inputs from students from across the globe studying there at that time. To their credit, L&S would have definitely been in some top notch college of India for sure, but most of their peers would have landed with them due to a heavily paid management quota or through some sort of a caste quota. Googles initial troubleshooting would have been just a little bit haywire.  Forget cross cultural, imagine how a big agenda our politicians would get if we start accommodating international students – currently, there are problems of accommodating each other across states within the country itself.

3 > Edu Culture : L&S must have earned great respect while going ahead with their research. But how about thinking of doing the same where the only type of people opting for that would be mavericks or low graders . How is it that, in the west, we continuously see big shot innovations and creations coming out of dorm rooms and garages & going onto to silicon valley – micosoft, Apple, Dell and countless others. Why is it that hostel rooms of Indian colleges don’t produce companies. Or more surprisingly, how many students think of starting one while in college – certainly very few.  Our edu culture certainly needs some reform if any.

4 > Mentors : L&S endure all the odds and go looking out for advice and guidance. Just to come to know that most of the mentors here would just be able to help them with their textbooks and regular thesis curriculum. Because business here is considered to be meant for either for MBA’s or Gujjus ;-) – not for Phd or research type of people.  While guides like Rajeev Motwani gave the creators of google not just tech guidance, but also encouraged them to dream about building a business around their ideas. It’s the sort of advice that parents of young jawans in Punjab give their young kids in spite of knowing the risks behind it -  never come back without winning! Don’t we need that sort of a sacrificing attitude in technology. Shouldn’t a partially innovative concept for a final year project be rated above a fully working project that been done overand over for years. How often do we see college professors dropping projects because it may not work infront of the enternal ! Think its time for more ‘ go and dare ‘ gurus rather than ‘play it safe’ gurus.

5 > Value : Richard Branson mentions in his book ’Business stripped bare’ that they have managed to establish Virgin throughout the world, but they are having a really tough time in India because the only value that the people appreciate here is the value for money. A long term perspective, superior service, ethics, convenience all come second to it. L&S wouldn’t have had a tough time because they gave it free. That’s why India loves google and google generates very less revenue from India ! But is it because of this that most of the innovative ideas loose gas early here, because they try to establish themselves in this market first. Well, may be!

6> Name: On a lighter note, when L&S would have gone ahead to register – Google- they would not have been able to register google technologies pvt ltd. Simply because google is a misspelling of googol and to register company here, you need to mention the dictionary meaning of the name in the form– or you don’t get it – unless of course you know the alternatives. ;-)

7 > It would have worked : Well, these and there are a lot more points like do we have the sort of people like Andy Bechtolsheim who would, for the love of technology fund research projects and many more. But thinking of it, even if all these barriers would have come up, google would have worked had it started in any part of the world – because google is a spiritually correct product company. We all are searching for something in our lives - love, happiness, goodwill, money, success, meaning of our lives, something or the other. And Google, lets us do just that in the best way – SEARCH !