Reverse brain drain - Interesting take

Question came up because it’s Independence Day 🇮🇳 A lot of us have had the privilege to be able to go abroad, but ended up choosing not to. For me, it was just believing there’s enough growth here in the coming few decades + friends/family Looking to hear if the reduced brain drain is actually true, and what makes people stay.

I love to read about tech and how startups evolved. Have spent a lot of time figuring out how the good product companies in the US got built: Google, FB, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest etc. etc. One thing stands out: A lot of these started out as just projects, and not a real startup. Instagram was just an idea to make photo filtering better. Reddit was just a project around making a cooler internet. They set off as projects, and got some traction before becoming funded startups. Because they had devs in the founding team, who were always doing projects as side hustles. This wasn't the time when SDE salaries were so pumped up, they didn't want to just become good devs, they probably wanted to solve real problems. My takeaway: Maybe Engineers shouldn’t be too incentivised to just code. They should be incentivised to think business. Thats how FB, Google, Insta etc happened as companies. In India, high pay endears engineers to stick to coding, do less business thinking. That’s why we don’t see too many coders posting their side projects on X, Reddit, GV within India. Maybe there just aren’t enough. Have just been thinking about this. Open to thoughts from the community - maybe my view is limited. Would love to hear.

Hi, I am thinking to shift to US. Wanted to know if it is worth to go US leaving the parents in India. Also how much I will be able to save in next 15 years in US. Might come again to India. Profile: Age - 27 Designation - Product manager Exp - 2 years Also please tell what challenges one faces in US and whether I will be able to ask my parents to come to US once their retirement.

Talked to the son of my Dad's friend recently. Brilliant kid has a good GPA from IIIT-H + 2 research internships and 1 summer internship at good companies. He still can't find a "good" company to get into. (Side Note: "good" implies a high paying job relative to last couple of years) Apparently, most of his friends in other colleges are in the same boat. Massive pay correction has happened. The undergoing rationale is that companies hired Class of 2022 with no restraint because the demand was really strong during their placement season in 2021. This appears to be directly correlated with quantitative easing in the US and a low interest rate environment that was conducive to fundraising for several Series A+ startups. By the time Class of 2022 entered the market, everything changed and they felt some short term change. However, Class of 2023 is having a much tougher time. They are shoved into the job market in a time where demand is low and they are competing with kids who graduated last year. Ongoing consensus appears to be that a huge chunk of their batchmates are going to get their Masters abroad. Their hope is that by the time they graduate out of grad school, the economy will pick up and demand will be strong while they're poised to take advantage of that with bump up credentials. Unfortunately, this also implies that many of them will end up in the CPT-OPT-H1B-Green Card hell. This is really a tough spot to be in.

I've had the fortune of having worked in 3 countries so far. India is by far the most exciting place to be in 2024. But there's something about our work ethic that just concerns me. In both white and blue collar. In most other countries, I've observed people strictly sticking to the 9 to 5, working diligently in those hours - not wasting too much time on chai sutta breaks, instagram browsing, gupshup etc. They work for 8 hours, then leave. And think about work directly the next day. In India, most of us spend more hours - but very obviously very few of those hours are productive. In fact, I lately feel that too many people around me are doing even 2-3 hours of work on a good day. We end up just staying around, passing time, and then go back home. When we could have achieved so much more. Work ethic has fallen. Work hours have gone up. We need to be more mindful of our actions, we need to work well at work, and then do well at home. I think it's a function of being over populated. There are 1.5-2 people doing what 1 person should be doing, hence this effect. Needs to be fixed, it's the sign of a major problem in the workforce. Thoughts?

India's unstoppable rise in tech and innovation makes the West's decline clear. Yet immigration number always baffles me - are we being shortsighted? 🤔

What is the reason for this? Lack of pay, Lack of cutting edge research?