I love book excerpts. Like film trailers, they offer up the juiciest bits from potentially marginal titles. Here’s a good one from NYT columnist Tom Friedman’s latest, The World is Flat. Hedge (fund) hog and sound bite artiste Dinakar Singh compares minds to perishable inventory in dockside godowns:

”India had no resources and no infrastructure… It produced people with quality and by quantity. But many of them rotted on the docks of India like vegetables. Only a relative few could get on ships and get out. Not anymore, because we built this ocean crosser, called fiber-optic cable. For decades you had to leave India to be a professional. Now you can plug into the world from India. You don’t have to go to Yale and go to work for Goldman Sachs.”

”… the railroad overinvestment was confined to your own country and so, too, were the benefits,” Singh said. In the case of the digital railroads, ”it was the foreigners who benefited.” …That overinvestment, by companies like Global Crossing, resulted in the willy-nilly creation of a global undersea-underground fiber network, which in turn drove down the cost of transmitting voices, data and images to practically zero, which in turn accidentally made Boston, Bangalore and Beijing next-door neighbors overnight.

In Friedman’s butterfly formulation, the Global Crossing bankruptcy let IIT kids enjoy both cash and kachoris. It’s the global version of ‘work in your pajamas’: enjoying family, festivals and food at home.

In bragging rights for who’s got the biggest, impressive buildings are a frequent battleground (Erotic Gherkin, anyone?). In the old days, they were monuments stocked with semiprecious stones, and the craftsmen were blinded after completion; today, they’re miles-long malls with built-in ice rinks, Prada stores and rugrats in tow:

Menon… is embarking on his new venture – Sobha Global Mall — in Bangalore with a cost of Rs.15 billion ($345 million). “As of today, our upcoming mall project will be the largest in India, spread over 17 acres with a built-up area of 2.8 million sq. feet,” Menon said. “Apart from a shopping complex, an amusement park, 192-room plush hotel, convention centre, multiplex and smart offices, the mall will boast of an Olympic size ice skating rink, the first of its kind in the sub-continent,” Menon added.

How does that compare to the Mall of America, owned by the Iranian-American Ghermezian brothers? It will be 33% smaller, and that’s before the MoA’s expansion:

… the managing partner of Mall of America, wants to nearly double the size of the largest mall in the U.S. with a $1 billion, European-themed addition featuring boutiques, hotel towers, an ice rink, a concert hall and a casino.

It’s Tiffany vs. Bhindi Jewelers: I foresee a global charms race. It’s hard beating Middle Easterners for grandiosity, although Noida is trying. See Harrods and the Burj al-Arab — there’s a reason why Texans and Saudis get along.

Corrupt public servants are advised to note the change of web address in future shakedown attempts:

Leading online marketplace Baazee.com has rechristened itself ‘eBay India’. This follows the completion of integration process with Nasdaq-listed $3.3 billion eBay Inc, which acquired the former for a consideration of $50 million in August last year, making it a 100% subsidiary. [The Financial Express]

The Financial Express: Baazee is now eBay

Previous post: Baazee.com CEO arrested over sex clip Continue reading →

McDonald’s is routing drive-through orders to a remote call center in the U.S. Can Gurgaon be far behind?

Company officials said the idea, being tested at a small number of restaurants in the Pacific Northwest, is aimed at reducing the number of mistakes at the drive-thru window… “You have a professional order taker with strong communications skills whose job is to do nothing but take down orders,” said Matthew Paull, the chief financial officer. Paull said a “heavy percentage” of complaints the company receives are from drive-thru customers who got the wrong order.

The commando elves who man our secret North Dakota headquarters have been spotted wearing phone headsets and glazed expressions.

This reminds me of the Pakistani company in D.C. which outsourced its receptionist to Lahore (thanks, Parag). You walk in and interact with a webcam and a floating head, very Oz.

… Lakshmi Mittal are numbers one, two and three in this year’s Forbes’ billionaires list.

In raw dollars, no one had a better year that Lakshmi Mittal. The London-based, Rajasthan-born steel baron was the biggest dollar gainer on this year’s listing of the world’s billionaires, adding $18.8 billion to his net worth. That took him to $25 billion, sufficient to vault the 54-year old Mittal a full 59 places up the billionaire ranks, making him the third-richest man on the planet. [cite]

That puts him just ahead of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud and the head of Ikea. He is roughly 35 times as wealthy as the Queen of England. Rumors persist that he is planning to marry Famke Jansen and change his last name to Onatopp. Similar rumors persist that you can get in touch with Mr. Mittal by leaving a comment in this blog asking for his email address, and that Bill Gates is giving away money to anybody who forwards chain emails claiming to be from him.

Read Forbes on Mittal, or see our previous posts about him: World’s biggest steel company will be desi-owned, Forbes names India’s richest. Continue reading →

Regular Sepia Mutiny commentor Santhosh Daniel points us at the decidedly less than flattering special report at the Seattle Times documenting the rise and fall of Infospace & it’s Rock Star CEO – Naveen Jain –

In spring 1999, Jain and his wife went on a house-shopping cruise around Lake Washington, docking at several multimillion-dollar mansions for sale. One home, owned by saxophonist Kenny G, had, among other touches, an automatic toilet-paper dispenser. The Jains preferred something different and latched onto a 1.3-acre Medina estate called Diamanti — Greek for diamond — buying it for $13 million. The mansion boasted 16,500 square feet of space and a two-story garage. The garage shared a glass wall with the house so the owner could display an auto collection.

If the stuff in the story is even half true, Naveen deserves lock up time that would make Martha Stewart’s 5 months seem like a quaint vacation. Continue reading →