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.
This is an actually very true.
I’ve seen developers who are very good in the stuff they do but lack the thinking from a customer / business POV. They take the PRD and convert it into code but never ever question whether this is the experience they want to provide to the end user.
Everyone needs to understand code is a way to achieve business and to achieve business , you would need to think from a business prospective.
That’s why , I always tell my juniors whenever they code , always take a step back and put yourself in the customer shoes and think what you are doing is what you want as a customer or not
very nice observations. But my simple take is Indian techies crib too much. Nothing is enough.
Second para - exactly. And when you don't question stuff like this, it's tough to be happy/satisfied with your work. What are you really building? Who does it help? Did it even matter?
Great that you're guiding folks the right way!
Absolutely based take. That's now my approach for any side-projects as well.
But I feel we'll get there eventually given the current environment. Very bullish on India rn.
We'll get there eventually, only if there are enough bear cycles that make people chase salaries less and entrepreneurial stuff more
I also think there is a brain drain overall - you do have a good chunk of the population moving abroad to study and then eventually settle there rather than coming back to build for India
Now we can hold a lot of factors responsible for that - be it economic factors, salaries, standard of living, quality of education etc. etc.
All in all I'm not surprised that a lot of smart talent would prefer to move abroad. India is a growing opportunity yes, but it's also tougher to build here I feel.
There is brain drain, for sure But I think it has reduced over time. For example, 5-10 years ago, % of people going abroad from my college (Tier 1) used to be much greater. Now it's dropped.
I think a different group of people now go abroad (the very best - top 0.1% & people who just aren't able to find opportunities in India)
Really? I feel like it could be a covid led phenomenon and tightening of visa regulations which might have curbed this a little.
But I still think there is a good chunk of smart talent moving abroad
Would thinking more about business give a bigger upside? 10 cr company is not that difficult actually if you have good business acumen while one may take 10 years to earn that wealth.
Then coming to your take - this is a good observation.
What I think is we do have a herd mentality as well. We see someone got this much hike or working in faang earning this much. Our top most institutions are famous for placing people with fat packages. Other things are secondry. Majority of our population is obsessed with govt jobs.
We are not thinking about how to solve problems. While there is nothing wrong with it and we can not say one thing is definitely better than other. We should also focus on other aspects of life not just a good salary and showoff of working at this package in this company.
True true - absolutely bang on about the herd mentality. I think being entrepreneurial was appreciated in California right from the 60s and 70s.
For us, it's always the FAANG bhaiyya didi that has been appreciated (for most).
Once this shifts, a lot of good things can happen. How it will happen, I really don't know. Hopefully enough folks once they become 27-32 can realize what is important in life and what isn't. The first 5-6 years spent on climbing the corporate ladder is maybe just the price we pay for being a society that incentivizes brands and salary
In India, dev needs spare time to build side husstle. Most of their time is absorbed by the shitty wlb
@stupidusername Exactly what I feel is wrong I think if devs do not get time to work on passion projects, this can slow innovation
In fact, Google used to give their own devs 20% time to work on passion projects, and a lot of amazing products came out of that
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