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Working
Abroad -
Valley
of Dreams
A recent trip
to Silicon Valley sets MOHAN BABU thinking on what differentiates it from
Bangalore. The difference, he observes, does not stem from technology,
infrastructure, communication or manpower quality, but people who dare to dream
Bangalore has
long held the title of Silicon Valley of the East, and has seen a steady influx
of companies from the US, Europe and elsewhere. Until my recent weeklong stay in
the heart of the “real” Silicon Valley, I used to wonder if the moniker was
really justified. There again, I had also read that Silicon Valley is a
glorified idea eulogised by business and tech writers during the heady days of
boomtime, where every garage literally sprung up an idea for a tech start-up.
Also, Silicon Valley is not the only vibrant technical zone in the US. There are
a number of other hi-tech belts around the US; and most large data centres
managed by Fortune 500 companies are bigger in size than a dozen or so Silicon
Valley companies put together (in terms of budget, size and number of people
employed). However, “The Valley” as most people like to call it, still lures
techies. Being a native of Ban-galore, having lived in Colorado for over five
years, and worked in a few large data centres myself, a visit to the Valley came
as a breath of fresh air.
The current tech
slump notwithstanding, the atmosphere in Silicon Valley is vivacious and
contagious. Even while sipping latte at a local Starbucks in San Jose, I was not
immune to the “techie” atmosphere around me: talk of wireless protocols, VoIP
and middleware wafting from different corners of the room did not let me forget
that I was in the Valley. Lunchtime in restaurants near office parks continue to
be abuzz with impromptu interviews (if it is vibrant in this slow economy, how
would it have been during the boomtime, I wonder). Tiffin room at a chaat house
on El Camino drive, a quintessential Indianised road, felt more like a canteen
in a typical engineering college back home! Even the main public library in
Sunnyvale carries a wide array of Indian newspapers and magazines (along with
Pakistani, Chinese, Filipino and other publications, I must add). Little wonder
then that authors and tech writers allude to the fact that it is hard to capture
the real essence of the Valley anywhere. The closest we come to creating the
“buzz” is perhaps at the Infosys campus in the Electronic City or the numerous
pubs and coffee shops on M G Road in Bangalore.
There is little
doubt or argument over the role Indians have played in the success of start-ups
and high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. Indians continue to be a visible part
of the socio-economic climate. Indians have also climbed the corporate ladder in
many of the largest companies in the Valley and are actively involved in TiE
(The Indus Entrepreneurs) and other organisations. Similarly, Bangalore too has
attracted some of the best and biggest tech companies from across the globe.
This aside from being the hometown of Infosys, Wipro and scores of other Indian
giants. I could go on over the similarities between the “real” Valley and the
Indian Silicon Valley, but will shift gears to look at where we are different.
Firstly,
everything in the Valley is considered to be of a grandiose scale, and indeed
thousands of start-ups have literally moved from garages to multi-million dollar
offices in a span of just a few years. Arguing that because we pay our techies
in rupees, we are “cheap”, does not hold water any more than trying to tell
Microsoft that a copy of
Windows sold in
India or China should be cheaper than that sold in New York. That brings us to
the next point: The same genera of Indian techies, who can innovatively take a
start-up into a multi-million dollar company are unable to “think big” sitting
in Bangalore. Why is that?
The usual lament
over lack of infrastructure or capital is passé. Infrastructure, technologies,
tools and communication systems are as accessible in Bangalore as they are in
San Jose. Then why can’t our local techies then dream of world-class ideas that
could translate to world-class products sitting right there? Even when the
occasional techie develops a product that could be considered world-class, he
does not have the marketing muscle or thrust to think global. Also, for most
Indian “tech” companies, placing bodies in projects, outsourcing low-end work or
coding-for-hire is the end goal. It almost seems like moving up the value chain
and capturing the market for a line of products or solutions is far from the
minds of most business leaders. I am sure that I am going to get criticised by
genuine innovators back in India for saying this. But isn’t the core of our
much-touted success based on selling coders in the international market, not
products or solutions? This is perhaps the key difference between the real
Valley and Bangalore. In the Valley people dream of products and ideas and can
(and do) take their ideas to fruition. I wonder how many techies in Bangalore
dare to dream?
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