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BOOKS
Indians Inside
Of mouse-smitten techies who have made a splash
in
Silicon Valley
By Sanjoy Narayan
In the early 1980s,
the proprietors of the financial newspaper I was then working with tried
a curious experiment with us. One Monday morning, they replaced all the
rugged Remington typewriters that we used to batter in the newsroom with
sleek Apple Macs. By current standards those boxes with their monochromatic
monitors could be called antiques but back then for many of us it was
like a trip into the future in a time machine. The few of us younger reporters
were thrilled by the "new technology" but many of our seniors
reacted quite differently. I remember one veteran reporter refusing to
shift to the Mac for months. Later, we realised that he had consulted
his astrologer who had suggested he make the transition from Remington
to Apple on an auspicious date that was six months down the line. That
was an era when financial journalists were notoriously technology unsavvy.
Computers meant huge mainframes, forbidding and esoteric. The first Indian
computer magazine was yet to be launched. And as for awareness about Indians
making waves in the technology domain in the US, you would have to be
joking.
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THE HORSE THAT FLEW
By Chidanand Rajghatta
HarperCollins
Price: Rs 595
Pages: 375 |
Yet, even as we were getting (and I borrow the
phrase from Chidanand Rajghatta) "mouse-smitten" (Yep! those
Apple Macs came with mice), Indian immigrant techies in the US had already
created waves. Amar Bose, the celebrated former mit professor, founded
Bose Corp back in 1964. Even before that, Narendra Singh Kapany (heard
of him?) created fibre optics and, in the late 1960s, he also became the
first Indian entrepreneur to go public in the US. Or Suhas Patil and Umang
Gupta, whose ventures form the core of companies that are today known
as Cirrus Logic and Centura Software respectively. Or even Jugi Tandon,
the supplier of disk drives.
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THE ENTRE- PRENEURIAL CONNECTION
By Gurmeet Naroola
Tata-McGraw
Price: $24.99
Pages: 317 |
The story of Indians making it big in Silicon
Valley is old hat. In May last year, Fortune did a cover story ("The
Indians of Silicon Valley") that celebrated the success of Indian
techies and helped make names like Kanwal Rekhi, K.B. Chandrasekhar and
Sabeer Bhatia household icons. Following the celebration of their achievements
in the US, the Indian media has done the customary-building up the hype
that surrounds them locally. So, when Rajghatta's book landed up, the
first reaction was, "Oh no! Not again." For one, the success
stories of Indians in Silicon Valley have become hagiographical. And second,
Rajghatta's book is out at a time when, thanks to the stock market crash,
tech has almost become a four-letter unmentionable.
But precisely because Rajghatta has avoided the
easy option of rooting hoarsely for the known Indian icons of Silicon
Valley, the book is worth a read. Scrupulous journalist that he is, Rajghatta
has interviewed scores of techies and profiled in an easy-to-read narrative
style Indians who made a difference, starting with pioneers like Kapany
and Patil to the more familiar stars like Vinod Khosla, mentor Kanwal
Rekhi, chip wiz Vinod Dham and serial entrepreneurs like Desh Despande
and K.B. Chandrasekhar. And, of course, the ones that made it in the Valley
without putting down roots there, like Azim Premji and N.R. Narayana Murthy.
True, many of these are people who you are likely to know a lot about
already but if it's perspective and background (plus interesting behind-the-scenes
anecdotes) you seek, pick it up.
I wish I could say that of the other book that
is being reviewed here. Gurmeet Naroola's interviews with 24 Indian entrepreneurs,
several of them subjects of Rajghatta's book, is a smart idea. Unfortunately,
that's all it is. The interviews are unremarkable and the occasional blurbs
(quotes from those interviewed) worse. Consider two nuggets: "Business
is nothing more than common sense coupled with experience" and "When
people see results, their conviction grows stronger". I'd plump for
Rajghatta any day.
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