SM Reader 3rd Eye posted an interesting stat from my corner of the RealWorld on the News Tab –
In the past two months alone, four Massachusetts based companies with Indian chief executives have registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public: Starent Networks Corp, Netezza Corp, BladeLogic Inc and Virtusa Corp.
Desi’s head up 4 of 12 2007 IPO’s from Mass State
They represent a third of state companies that have filed for initial public offer (IPOs) this year.
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p>Now Desi tech entrepreneurship is not only alive and well but also well-discussed here on the Mutiny. For a host of reasons, as the article notes, Desi’s have done an admirable job in Tech (and particularly, it appears, in MA 2007). Still, there’s an interesting angle revealed by the firms profiled here. The theme is probably quite familiar to Desi’s who live / breath the tech biz and less so to those outside of it —
- Starent is in the mobile infrastructure space. Interestingly, my company (Roundbox) has done some work with them in the past around a relatively esoteric technology called BCMCS (Starent competitor Airvana, co-founded by a desi dude, has some brief info on BCMCS here – just in case some of you need help getting to sleep tonight).
- Netezza is in the burgeoning datawarehousing biz and falls somewhere between companies like Network Appliance and the Mighty Oracle. In the tech systems world, everything old is destined to be new again and Netezza’s product is, in some ways, a remix of old skool integrated database hardware systems – but ridiculously more capable.
- BladeLogic builds software for datacenter management. So if your firm fancies building a Google-esque data center (albeit likely on a dramatically smaller scale) and needs warez to manage the deployment of apps inside this wide area cluster, BladeLogic is your solution.
- Virtusa was new to me and apparently has staked out a corner of the outsourcing / offshoring biz.
Common threads? Well, as many a Valley observor has casually noted in the past, depending on how you classify Virtusa, all of ’em are deep in the back end / infrastructure / “systems” segment of the tech biz. Unlike the consumer or “apps” space, this segment is primarily about $$$ being made by geeks selling stuff to other geeks. And as a direct result, the tech is front and center and is often Truly Hard. It’s not a stretch to say these guys are often the geekiest, most hard core of the geeks (and, uh, I really mean that as a compliment).
Second, these particular tech firms were all founded by Desi Uncles. By contrast ABCD’s are more likely to be found at App co’s rather than Systems (here’s one recently discussed example; here are some others). At an app company, user experience drives the firm far more than the efficiency of the plumbing – the underlying tech is often in a supporting role to the business model rather than the raison d’etre of the company.
Now before the usual suspects jump up and scream about stereotypes and generalizations, it’s worth pointing out that there are certainly prominent exceptions (for ex., here are some FOB-founded App companies; depending on how you want to classify me + my company, I’m an ABCD working Systems). It’s just that living and breathing Silicon Valley air makes it hard not to notice the FOB = Systems and ABCD = Apps correlation. One indirect and telling datapoint, in the Bay Area at least, both the ABCD vs FOB and Apps vs. Systems ratios co-vary as you move from downtown San Francisco / SOMA to the other end of the Bay – San Jose. One end is Banana Republic / content dotcoms, the other end, uh, Cisco. Any guess which end has more authentic Indian food?
Why? Well, part of the answer is that systems co’s are generally run by, well, older folks. ABCD’s simply haven’t been in tech long enough. I think however, part of the reason is that selling an app to the mass market requires a lot of pop cultural context – anyone wanna guess what Ms Parasol brought to the table? By contrast, success in the systems world is about discussing bits & bytes with other tech geeks – a culture which was likely more universally accessible than the secret to MySpace for IIT-grad FOB Uncles. Combine it with immigration patterns which overwhelmingly favored the Geeks rather than the Hip and you get more desi Starent’s & Junipers rather than YouTube’s and Flickr’s.
Geek is the new chic. So that ^ is always a compliment. I, for one, am relieved.
Irrational! Pathetic! Delusional! Educate yourself! Desis are not a model minority! There are 111 million prostitutes in India! 556 million Dalits.97 percent of the population is malnourished! Most NRIs work in cheap motels or 7-11s or self-founded Bodegas!My balls are hurting now! I’m going to stop!
Another point to be made is that many of the FOBs are from IIT, where the syllabus has traditionally been more slanted toward the system-level rather than the apps level.
Very interesting post, Vinod. I’m wondering how to fit Mobio–which might still be in Beta–into your taxonomy. Mr. Bhasin is a first-generation immigrant. It’s a mobile app, but it’s not cultural like YouTube or Flickr.
It would also be an interesting excercise to hunt for desis and other immigrants in the CTO slot.
Another point to be made is that many of the FOBs are from IIT
I think that might be too much of generalization. I would say “some” of the FOBs are from IIT, but most are probably not from IIT. However, your point re: systems versus apps is a good one, in the sense that most engineering programs in India tend to focus on systems.
Spoordarshan,
That was hilarious 🙂 Keep up the good work.
Regards,
But of the companies that get VC funding, a larger fraction would be started by people from IIT, my sense. And, please – it’s one thing for Vinod to say ‘FOB’ right next to ‘ABCD’, and not use quotes, because that ‘evens out’ 🙂 – but could the rest of us please use the quotes around both, or either alone, if we must use the terms? I mean, they are considered offensive terms. Thanks.
Indian society strongly encourages Engineering as a profession … and the trend for ‘outsourcing’ has further strengthened this bias … America doesn’t need to produce techies any more because their jobs are all off-shore. America needs to produce middle-management/efficient communicators/ customer relations-experts … all with an end-product focus. Since Apps are closer to the Customer in the pipeline, you will find more ABDs in this field .. because they are the result of the American demand. IBDs are the opposite – the demand is for techies… and the Indian education system produces exactly that.
I am not surprised that you will find many, many more Chinese/Indian Borns in the techie side of things .. while their American-born counterparts are at the front-end side of things, like business/marketing/Apps … we are simply the products of our education systems, which are in turn products of the supply/demand of that country’s economy.
P.S. Am I the only one cringing at the casual way ‘FOB’ is being tossed around all over this post ?
Thanks chachaji – ‘ABCD’ and ‘FOB’ have been used pretty mercilessly not only in the comments but in the post as well
but could the rest of us please use the quotes around both, or either alone, if we must use the terms
Ok, I’m sorry. I was just using the terminology used in other comments and in the main post. Will be more careful next time, etc.
Not sure but aren’t most of us desensitized (at last a little bit) by now to the offensive nature of these terms? Its not so much a “oh my god, you said Fob!” event….at this point, here at SM, I think these terms are used not in order to spite others, but simply because they are precise terms which reduce article word counts. And being brief is the number 1 rule for Internet communications isnt it?? 😉 FOB or ABCD, we are all the Internet generation…
Vinod, Please file this under humor too (or tongue-in-cheek), coz people are going to discuss only about the usage of ‘FOB’ and ‘ABCD’ and not the actual topic.
I agree with the comments that both “FOB” and “ABCD” are offensive. Perhaps 1st and 2nd generation could be used. I don’t like to just criticize and not offer any suggestions, so 1st and 2nd generation is the best I can do off the top of my head. I realize this might be tangentinal to the over point of the post, and it’s a discussion worth having. Other alternatives to “FOB” and “ABCD”?
12. Vinod, Please file this under humor too (or tongue-in-cheek), coz people are going to discuss only about the usage of ‘FOB’ and ‘ABCD’ and not the actual topic.
I think it is not completely off topic because Vinod engages in a bit of essentializing, despite his qualifications, and once people are reduced to an easy label like “FOB” or “ABCD,” they do become a stereotype.
Where does the user exp. stop and the plumbing begin? The most exciting work is in the interfaces. Sockets, anybody?
Also, the user exp. depends on the user. What happens when the indian consumers outnumber american ones for a particular app?
I do not miss the era when everybody was a web designer.
Of course .. IBD for ‘FOB’ , and ABD for ‘ABCD’ … ( i.e. Indian Born Desi and American born Desi ).. I’ve been a regular reader of SM and these terms have been used tons of times before.
The main reason according to me is that system companies require in depth engineering knowledge which a lot of ABCD’s lack. On the other hand FOB’s are very knowledgable about the bits and bytes but have a hard time anticipating social applications the American society.
Another thing worth pointing out is that majority of outsourcing companies are involved in application work in India. There are a very few companies doing outsourced systems work. What do you make of that?
For nomenclature, I like ABD and DBD (more inclusive than IBD). I really do not like “1st gen”, “2nd gen” because it implies that we are not the same generation even when we are the same age. I agree that there can be cultural differences between DBDs and ABDs (and of course, the obvious similarities). But we (I’m DBD myself) are “other” as foreigners (like a Japanese or Italian person your age), not as another generation.
I don’t mind being the country bumpkin or confused with any other country in the developing world. However, I don’t like being confused with your daddy. I don’t like the assumptions about my cultural sensibilities. Anyway, this comment is not addressed to any of the SM regulars (I know you don’t think like that) but to others who may chance upon this thread.
The ABD/DBD question is not tangential, but central to this thread. More on that…
Neale, You never met me. I am so happy plumbing but never thrilled to be in a meeting where they are discussing the user. if you mean server interfaces like sockets that is pure heaven although with the advent of app servers, jdbc and http protocols there is no longer fun in interfaces.It is like any other regular development.
I definitely want to miss the days when programmers developed VB interfaces. Boy some of them were definitely ugly.
I agree that a lot of the system/app divide is based upon what constitutes engineering education in Desh vs. the US. But it is hard for me to believe that people are simply following a script laid out for them. Come on, the “theory” of engineering is not hard and certainly not inaccessible. Anyone (with basic tech background) can pick it up. Nor is it so hard for a DBD to get into the pop culture. It’s not like the top executives of products for teens are enthusiastically using the products themselves. If you are out to make money in a market, there are ways to systematically study the market for opportunities without having to be into the culture yourself.
I think it’s a matter of interest. The engineering program seem to select people of different kinds in different countries. In the US, engineering is understood to involve developing products to take to the market. Projects using your hands are stressed and real demos are frequent in classes. Your ability to sell yourself seems to count a lot as well. In India, it is understood to be a techie profession. Math, for instance, is stressed for admission as well as in the program. So it attracts different people.
And different things are sold to high school kids as cool. I didn’t know very many kids growing up with me who wanted to do an MBA. Engr/Scientist was way cooler (Things are changing now in both places, of course) . For my own personality type, if I were an undergrad in the US, I would not have studied engineering at all. In India, that was the best choice for me and I’d do it again.
Even if I could assess what’s cool in the US market, guessing that and developing products accordingly just doesn’t turn me on (although it is philosophically very important to me that my work be applied, I don’t particularly care what the specific application is). I would say something like the opposite might be the case for the typical American engineer. She/he might be fully technical capable but might not care for that kind of work so much.
nice to see a discussion about sockets and threads…….. are we talking about 110v or 220v socket here? 🙂
on a different note, how “F” or stale do you have to be to no longer call yourself a “FOB”. who makes these rules? Can SM publish a user guide?? 🙂
After a few years, you can call yourself Stale Off the Boat or SOB, er.., maybe not.
Kurma – you make some interesting points, but you propose an idealist “you can cross over” scenario. While exceptions to the expected App-centric ABDs (or, indeed, ABAnythings) and Guts-centric DBDs (or DBAnythings) DO occur, and I know my fair share of them, that is still precisely what they are – exceptions!
I do agree, however, with your point about the need (and ability) to study a market/target one is not a demographic representative member of, oneself! (filed under NotesToSelf!)
As a DBD Guts-centrc Apps-side person myself, I ALSO philosophically feel the need for my work to be applied, but differ in that I’d like the application to be as altruistic as possible! And so I DO care what that application is. On the other hand some of us (me!) do see numerous other potential applications (some merely – ha ‘merely’! – monetarily advantageous, and not particularly altrusitic!) for a lot of existing or potential/new ‘products’!
Who comes on a boat anymore?! (Maybe if you are headed to Florida here from Cuba) How about Fresh Off the Plane (FOP) and Stale Off the Plane (SOP).
I think Vinod gets it mostly right, except for maybe this part. It needs more explanation.
In my opinion, the most important factor must be the selection effect of immigration policy.
I would love to see a post about the distribution of ABD’s v/s IBD’s v/s everyone else on Wall Street. Certainly the number of ‘quants’ on Wall Street has increased considerably. Though this space is no means dominated by Indians of any category, I am sure Indian representation has increased.
Kurma makes mostly good points in # 20. I would like to disagree about the ‘theory’ of engineering being easy. From seeing the undergrad engineering curriculum in two good state universities in the US, it seems to me that mathematical rigor is not emphasized as compared to my not-very-good college in India. Most courses require you only to use the results and do not focus on how results are derived. I am agnostic on the question of which system is better. However, the theory of engineering when studied rigorously is not that easy, certainly not when starting from general techie knowledge.
I’d like to introduce a new term which describes me: FOFCB
I’m Fresh off First Class, Beyotches!! (Go NW/KLM!)
I don’t know how important the pop culture context is — geeks trying to start a tech company in the consumer space should be able to figure the content/culture stuff out or at least partner with someone who gets it. And not that Americans don’t struggle with it — look at Semel’s profile and how yahoo has underperformed.
This is the key point I think. What’s the average age of a FOB/SOB/DBD techie and what’s that for an ABD geek? From a software system/app perspective, with time, we always get more layers of abstraction and move further away from the bits and the bytes. 20 years ago, we had to write OS and compilers, 10 years ago you would start with those and build your own thread pools, sockets, semaphores and class libraries before starting to work on the application layer and now you have JVM, app servers, web servers and zillions of tools and libraries. So the younger you are, the fewer chances you would get to do hard tech in an industry setting since a lot of the low-level jobs have been abstracted away and ones left are mostly held by the old guard. Some of the entry-level/maintenance systems jobs are getting offshored too. Overall, fewer opportunities for young ABCD/American grads to launch a career in building systems.
(from a geek-in-denial — windows OS development in Redmond –> managing business intelligence and CRM apps development –> product management in a mobile app startup)
First of all, I agree that terms “FOB” and “ABCD” are stereotyping. I’ll be glad if SM stops/reduces using those words.
I agree mostly with relating old “techies” to Systems and young “hippies”(?!) to Consumer space. Vinod says there can be exceptions. Well, in my experience, there is a huge number of these “exceptions” (If you take all these anamolies and put them together, we’ll have a city of Zion!). The relation is not as universal as assumed in the post. What about seasoned first gen techies who are venture capitalists now? It’s not like they put the money and relax…they do understand culture+youth. They fund a lot of consumer apps! I don’t have to give some names famous in Silicon valley – you would know. Then what about young first gen who work/run consumer apps? I work in designing consumer facing products and my friend runs Criki. I also know bunch of american desis who work as managers in systems/service space. Check out the number of second gen techies during happy hours in big 5 consultancies. Vinod, you have to talk about the emerging trend as well – not just the old stuff. It would have given a balanced view…IMHO.
Ritam # 27: nicely done.
Word.
@dipanjan and Babu –
You have reasoned that IBDs have long been in the IT industry, hence are well-versed with the ‘old stuff’ of systems , whereas younger ABDs have only recentled forayed into this field , and by the time they reached the start line, there were hundreds of abstractions to build on…hence Apps. I definitely do not agree.
The IT boom in India happened mainly in the last 10 years … following this trend, there has been a tremendous interest in Computer Science and hence India started producing CS Engineers by the gazillions… point being that this interest in Computers in India has only developed in the last decade, not before. You will not find Programmers in their 40’s and 50’s in India… it is dominated entirely by people in their 20’s.
In fact, the generation of the IBDs in their 40’s and 50’s know close to nothing about computers… let alone be well-versed in low level system stuff. However, in America, IT was lucrative since the 70’s and 80’s … I’ve met Americans well into their 50’s who have been programmers all their lives, who used punch cards and magnetic tape for storage of their programs.
Americans have been in IT waaaaaay longer than the Indians … and if we went by ‘Old = Systems’ and ‘New = Apps’ , Americans would’ve been in systems and Indians would’ve been in Apps.
(contd)
if the assumption is that the average age of an ABD is 20-something … then I would put IBDs and ABDs at exactly the same level wrt the ‘technology abstraction’. So there has got to be a different reason for the systems/apps divide. The assumption that IBD techies are in their 30’s and 40’s has no merit… I’ve worked in the Indian IT industry, and trust me, it is like college all over again. Even managers tend to be in their late 20’s.
Then you will be extremely surprised if you visit the campuses of msft,orcl,sun,intc,ibm,hpq,csco,brcm,jnpr,yhoo,amd,mot,txn etc. during the lunch hours. Of course, the IBD techies there would love to know that they are all still in their 20s and for once, will eat without worrying about thier waistlines.
Grrrrrrrrrr
I think we need to differentiate app and content dotcoms too. flickr/youtube might not be desi startups but hotmail and kosmix are. And so are the many startups featured on gigaom. So, that’s hardly a sample space to draw conclusions one way or the other. The bigger point is that any FOB who wanted to create a content dotcom has targeted desis in India and rightly so. If we can marshal our meagre resources and conduct another informal and inconsequential survey, you will notice that many content dotcoms in India are actually funded/started by FOBs. The very same IIT uncles who the article consigns to a habitat of “bits and bytes”, actually do good content stuff too. ABCDs will obviously be less inclined to start a content dotcom targeted at desis in India. Oh wait, maybe they will target desis in US! If you really want to compare FOB and ABCD startups, especially when you are going to draw half-baked sociological conclusions, then atleast compare content dotcoms done by FOBs in India and those done by ABCDs in US.
Ashu:
But this too falls under moral/philosophical. That distinctions I was making are as to who enjoys (pleasure). Thanks for sharing thoughts. btw, I enjoyed that “cheating husband” billboard on your blog!
Quant-trotsky, ‘easy’ is a relative term. I have been involved with engineering at very rigorous levels and believe that many engineers are unnecessarily afraid of rigor. My experience when I was a TA was that the best American undergrads were every bit as good as the best in India in ability. (The tail end of the class, though, was vastly different different i.e., it seemed that if one only wanted to scrape through, not having some mathematical maturity was fine). ABDs were usually some of the sharpest (and nicest, I might add) students. In the professional context, the relationship between the ABD/DBD students and DBD TAs was one of great mutual respect. btw, are you really a WS quant? go quants!
Geek is the new chicAwkward is the new sexy.Awkward is the new black.
On the Internet, nobody knows you are a FOB.
” Then you will be extremely surprised if you visit the campuses of msft,orcl,sun,intc,ibm,hpq,csco,brcm,jnpr,yhoo,amd,mot,txn etc. during the lunch hours. “
@ #33, #34 : Here is why I am extremely surprised: There was no market for computer sci experts in the 1980’s in India. Why were there IBD computer experts then ? Indian companies were hardly relying on computers in that age … Maybe a handful at best. if there was no demand, why was there a supply ?
I would expect expertise in this domain to be in some small pockets in a few engg colleges like IITs .. but definitely not mainstream. If there are tons of IBDs in their 40’s in msft,orcl, etc right now, I would assume that a good number of them made a career shift to IT somewhere in the early 90’s. The IT industry in India at least is dominated by 20-something year-olds. If the Bay Area has IBDs in their 40’s, yes I’m definitely surprised.
Kurma, my experience with the high-end students was the same. However, there seemed to be rapid decay after that. To be fair, I was a TA for CS, which is sometimes considered engineering and sometimes not. My worst experience was in an introductory level math for CS course. I almost tore my hair out getting people to understand what actually proving something means, as opposed to asserting it forcefully. It seemed to me that most of the class did not lack smarts, just the motivation to think rigorously.
As to your last question, yes, but I haven’t started work yet.
Randomizer, Take a deep breath and respect your elders.
Because America needed them. Please take some time to study the history of TCS, Patni, etc.
Haha, yeah, “proof by authority” and “proof by intimidation”. Here’s a really pathetic example – One guy (junior) was indignant that he had to do ∫xdx as part of a problem. “Is this a math class or something?” and this was in an aerodynamics course! I’ve seen struggling students often show righteous indignation at the “system”.
cool!.
Good question there, randomizer.
India’s first indigenous computer(ISIJU=ISI+JU)) was developed in 1966. Not just IITs, other engineering colleges have been offering computer science and engineering programs since early-mid 80s. Those graduates are well in their 40s now. Why did desis enroll when there was not much domestic demand? Well, there was a global demand. Some wanted to be professors or work in reserach labs (AT&T, TJ Watson) and went to grad schools in Europe and US. Some of them were true geeks and did not care too much about market demand. Some foresaw the market growth.
More importantly, in early days of the industry, a degree and academic background in computer science were not always needed. A lot of IBD scientists, engineers and mathematicians with diverse backgrounds were attracted to computer science in 80s and early 90s and most of them are still in the industry as executives/managers/researchers/engineers. Some of them are in their 50s now. If you google for the biography of the founders of the first two companies in the original post, you will see that Ashraf Dahod was born in Bombay and moved to Andover in 1973 at the beginning of his career. So he is in his 50s. Jit Saxena was born in Bina in 1945. Do the math. A couple of my engineer uncles came to US as graduate students in 70s. They did not switch to CS, but a lot of their friends and peers did when the industry took off in 80s and 90s around the same time when manufacturing industries and the oil patch in south started to stagnate and decline.
I personally know IBDs in their 30s and 40s in each of the companies I mentioned in the previous comment. More 30s than 40s, but that’s primarily because I am only 33.
Vinod,
Another reason why FOB run systems cos are run by old FOBs is the time that it takes an FOB from grad school to green card and thence a startup. A friend who started grad school here 12 years ago only now has gotten his startup going (and naturally it’s in systems). It is simply not possible for an FOB to launch any company here in her 20s (as you have very admirably done) even with all the drive in the world. And by the time they ind their mojo FOBs have been doing systems so long that it’s the thing they know.
Word, Shiva. #45
Virtusa are huge in Sri Lanka. They are the 800lb gorilla employer of engineers in Colombo. They also have branches in Hyderabad and possibly Chennai and they’ve recently expanded into the UK. They’ve also been talking IPO for 5 years or more but the market tanked after Sept. 11th; which might be why things taken so long.
Origins? The founder, Kris C., started out with a handful of programmers in the annexe of his posh Horton Place residence around the early to mid 90s. It was literally the garage based startup of yore 🙂 They acquired the property behind it a couple of years later and there is still a branch there, although they’re also in about 3-4 large offices around Colombo now.
They had more work than they could handle in the early years (dotcom boom 1 was just about kicking off) and they started expanding like crazy around ’99 or so. They had a reputation for doing cool projects; not your average accounting system jobbie, so they attracted some good people. Not that I consider myself particularly good but I did uh.. interview with them when I graduated yonks ago. I turned the offer down though for various reasons – not the least being that I thought their rate of expansion was frightening and couldn’t last. They jumped from about 50 to 1000 staff in Colombo in just about 6 years, approximately. That’s scary quick for Colombo tech, perhaps less impressive by Indian standards 🙂
By the way, I am not sure I agree with your assessment of hardcore geekery. Sure, the geeks play a part but the true genius behind Virtusa (IMNSHO, of course) is that they pursued short term projects in the US with relentless intensity. Lots of people in desiland can do tech, I think they did the marketing and resource management angles better than most though, which accounts for their success.
@dipanjan – thanks
@Neale – sorry, didn’t mean to sound disrespectful.. it wasn’t my intention. I am pleasantly surprised that IBD’s in the 70’s and 80’s pursued Computer Sci for global needs, as dipanjan mentioned .. and went on to travel to Europe/US etc. Perhaps most of the older gen I have come across in my personal life in India weren’t as well off to pursue such dreams… also, was going to the US for grad studies popular at that time as well ?
Randomizer, No offence taken.
In late 80s India, foreign travel wasn’t something anyone so common. Then came on-site outsourcing by US MNCs and people were jetting off all over the world. Better than going to an average grad school in USA. Especially the system guys who worked on financial apps went all over. Papua New Guinea, Djibouti, Colombia – u name it. I, myself, spent a chilled out two years in Bordeaux and Bayonne. Till that time, i thought living in Goa was laid back 🙂