India online

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Unlike the rest of the world,  the number of  internet users in  India is decreasing . Part of the reason is that there are almost no Indian websites which are worth visiting, most are just copy cats of foreign websites.  They are simply not value for money, why will any one want to spend money making friends (90% fake) online.  I like the way Chinese companies use the internet, they will directly tell you they got my email from one of my websites, they want to sell their product.  I get a lot of friend requests from India along with photos, but I am NOT interested in making fake friends online, if you want to buy / sell / want advice, better to get to the point directly.   I am very good at detecting lies.

Very few local companies spend any amount of time doing market research, they expend their energy and money spying and sabotaging any other company who they think will grow.Unlike coding where you learn a new language every few years, one of the better aspects of making money online is that experience matters.  Till 2 years ago, most of the money I made from my websites was from a single source.  Today, it is very diversified. My only regret is that I did not try the other methods earlier.

You may have an MBA from a top school,  have  hundreds of employees,  passed all the necessary certifications or read all the blogs of the all the “internet marketing gurus”,  it does not matter for online success.  A large number of employees can be a problem when times are bad (the previous post on Infosys layoffs has been very popular)

Unless you have hands on experience in making money online from your own websites or online,  you are unlikely to be able to formulate  a viable monetization strategy or run a profitable online business.

IT Companies

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Infosys has fired 2100 employees and  a confirmation from ex-Infosys employees about layoffs.  The problem is that when you provide services to only a few major customers, your fortunes are tied to how well their business does.  Compared to developing a product, providing a service is not very risky , but is very labour intensive.  Since there are only 24 hours in a day, at some stage you are forced to hire people to scale and then manage them.

If you develop a technology or even understand it better than others, the entry barriers are very high and it is difficult to replicate it easily.  Indian IT companies have a lot of cash reserves, so could afford to take risks. Unfortunately they did not.

More on the Infosys employee firing technique – in India the employees are forced to “resign” , this is how layoffs are implemented by HR departments.   Feel sorry for the ex-employees, actually rating systems in most companies are not fair,  many employees who are good at office politics often get good ratings, though they do little work.

Google

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Though Google’s official motto is  “Do no evil” , they certainly do hire evil employees.  Internet marketer sues Google employee .

When I was using Adsense on my websites , I always felt that the code was used to track the websites  I owned , how I marketed them, how I gathered content for my website and to collect a lot of other information.  It may not be their official policy yet, but they definitely do not have good systems in place to prevent malpractices.

Venture Capital Funding

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This post on  Google’s venture capital arm  Google Ventures , summarises what  I have believed for long

Corporate venture capital, according to many, constricts innovation rather than foster it. I’m inclined to go with the view, particularly as speculationGoogle launching a venture capital arm called Google Ventures. The Mountain View, California-headquartered search giant has not yet confirmed these news reports. mounts again about

No matter how it is packaged, the venture investing model followed by the likes of Intel, Cisco Systems, Motorola and so on ultimately exists to serve one purpose — incubate external tech labs with the objective of either absorbing those emerging technologies within the larger company or to simply arrest the growth of a competitive technology

Many of these companies will go to any length to destroy a competitor , from spying on activities to dumping viruses and launching DDOS attacks.  So the less they know about you, the better.

Mainstream media

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So salaries are being reduced in the mainstream media companies, earlier there was talk of layoffs too.  Unlike the developed countries where major newspapers are closing their print editions, the mainstream media has flourished in India in the last few years.

However, at least for the English language papers, it is going to be a struggle soon, since they cater to the same English speaking internet using population.  The only advantage is that most people spend a lot of time commuting in major metros, so newspapers are still very convenient for reading when you are stuck in a traffic jam.

Ragging

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This recent ragging death has got a lot of media coverage.  The students who suffer the most are those who stay in hostels, usually 17 or 18 years , living far away from their parents for the first time.  Its been a long time, but from what I remember from my hostel days, those who take greatest pleasure in ragging their juniors are those who have the attributes for success in the corporate world – arrogant, brash and inconsiderate, ragging is their idea of “fun”.

It is worth noting that the to be “doctors” who committed the murder were drunk, why is drinking and pub culture considered  being “forward” and modern?

Pub Culture

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So Nirmala Venkatesh has been removed from the National Commission of Women for stating what 95% (or more) of the population of India feels about the incident – in most parts of India, wearing skimpy clothes is asking for trouble.

I once met a British lady tourist at Jaipur airport, the first thing she asked me was why do people in India always want to “touch” her.  She had traveled all over the world, including Africa alone, but she had never encountered such bad behavior.  This incident occurred many years ago, but from news reports, for female tourists”Incredible India” , still remains incredibly unsafe India. Most foreign countries issue advisories to female tourists visiting India to be properly covered, why does the media not highlight it or do something to change it?

Other than people working in call centers, mainstream media , advertising and  a few other sectors, few people have the time and money to waste going to pubs. Unfortunately, they are under the delusion that they represent the entire country and blind to the fact that the majority of the population lives on less than 2 dollars a day. Alcohol causes a number of health related problems, you wonder why the mainstream media is promoting pubs so much.

The other thing is the increasing isolation of the privileged in India from the reality. As an engineer, one of the first things I was told after starting my job was to wear a bindi and dress conservatively. Student trainees were told not to wear sleeveless tops, jeans and other such clothes.  You had to get your panel designs manufactured on the shop floor by workers and the trade union was controlled by the Bhartiya Kamgar Sena (affiliated with the Shiv Sena). Their attitude was very different, but the emphasis was always on getting work done quickly at the lowest cost, not criticizing or ridiculing them.  Attitudes change over a period of time.

Investment “experts”

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Harvard’s declining endowment funds – shows that most investment bankers are grossly overpaid,  just because they handle the money, they get very high salaries and bonuses.  Few have the judgement or foresight to take the correct decisions.  A comment  is even more interesting (the best part of Rediff are the comments)

The worst fall-out of last few years frenzy was, making money out of thin air became an addiction. A wasted generation of brilliant minds led away from hard-core engineering. Any proposal to raise money from the public was padded up to make it a dream.

95% of the best engineers who graduated in the last two decades did not do engineering – they either worked in software companies or did an MBA and became “financial experts” . That is the real tragedy, working as a engineer teaches you to be practical and  you design for the long term. Something you design for a refinery or a power plant will be in operation for at least two or three decades, with very little downtime, you cannot afford to make mistakes.

MBAs , especially in the financial sector are about dress code and slick talk to gullible investors.  Unfortunately, due to media hype, students still want to waste 2 years of their life doing an MBA. If  you value your money, listen to all investment “experts” , but take your own decisions.

IT firms

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IT firms and the Indian market –  I come from a non IT and internet background and have been very surprised how arrogant most IT and internet companies in India are. In engineering, even if you worked for the largest company in the industry and your customer was a very small company, you always tried to be flexible, listen to the customers requirement and make changes wherever possible.  I remember going to every hardware store in Ajmer searching for  a particular type of cable for wiring, after a customer had made a last minute change in location and the cable reel the vendor had bought from Mumbai was not enough. After all, the customer ultimately paid your salaries.

Looks like I am not alone, many other Indian companies face a similar problem. That is why  I don’t feel work experience in the biggest IT firms or internet companies helps, the Indian market is very different.