Do you agree with this take by Paul Graham?

What's not to agree here? 90% of Indians earn less than 25k/m. Most products out there serve the top 1%, as they are the only ones who spend

I agree even in 2024 today ,we cant build things china has build in 2000s and their is always something be it religion or corruption always holding us back .

1. WE and that’s mean you me , that cab driver spitting on the road and every govt servant needs to love their country. We honestly don’t. We don’t take pride. (Atleast haven’t in the past). Developed democratic countries have a voice and they care for quality of life. They stand up for each other. For us, moving a ambulance on road is problem getting 2 meals a day is struggle.
2. Politicians like to keep it that way. Vote bank politics, casteism. They continue to keep us divided and we are OKAY with it.
3. China isn’t democratic but as a country took drastic and challenging steps - both on social, public reforms- from population control to industrialisation. Our govt can’t and will not do that. (Refer pt 2)

India will grow and may become 3rd largest economy, but on PPP Index it will remain poor.

He doesn't really knows a thing about government construction work in India. All government construction follows a predefined parameters which would be pretty hard to deviate from. It's more of a copy paste thing. He is right when he speaks of changes in attitudes. The attitudes take time to change. 1991 can be taken as the beginning and 40 yrs time-line would bring enough attitudinal change to make sufficient impact. India is a unique society which is amorphous in nature. Attitudinal changes don't occur in every generation. If that were so, the human society would be unrecognizable over a period of time. Just take the case of Gun control laws in USA. What kind of attitudinal changes still allow those guns.

So I think, Paul graham understands startups, but india has shades that even 80% of Indians would never understand.

I have a feeling that, india as a country has the opportunity to become both Silicon Valley and coexisting dirt poor at the same time. Lot of factors help you consider this.

1. India is not a single country, it’s 29 countries. The poor side of the country takes ages to have a woke culture of inclusivity, whereas the Indian Silicon Valley talks about inclusivity like no other country does it.

2. The rich and the poor differentiation is in the blood, it’s gonna be there for at least three more decades. The rich side contributes to the Indian Silicon Valley, while poor stay poor and empathetic.

3. The quality of people who are and want to build software is competitive on a global level. So they gonna build the Indian Silicon Valley. The quantity of people who focus on agriculture as the main livelihood and the government who allocates funds to attract the vote bank gonna continue.

4. Vision, perspective and ideologies are not nationalistic but pro world in the Indian Silicon Valley side, while the other side is humble and not ambitious.

Not completely agree or disagree with the OG post.

You may not find beggars but you can certainly find homeless people in the US.

The attitude thing at the end I agree with.

Now coming to the China part you mentioned they are not a democracy and have been hearing since long that their economy is waiting for a big shakedown to happen (due to the housing fiasco).

However these things don't mean we are perfect.

We need to have less corruption along with less bias in terms of gender/cast/region/religion.

We also need to ensure that everyone becomes richer than they were regardless of their current financial class (rich/middle/poor).

Then only we can prosper better.