Comment by FlyingSnake | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FlyingSnake | Hacker News Reader

I think the issue is three-fold

1. Baniya style businesses.

Though the startup founders are young and fresh, the overall business environment still reeks age old business patterns. I know few startups who offer no equity, treat employees like 2nd class citizens and want to get rich quick without spending much.

2. A lot of talent is ignored.

Everyone knows that the education system is inadequate for training engineers, but startups seldom train/intern students and bring them on par. There is a lot of latent talent apart from the Engineering graduates. Millions of students graduate as B.Sc.(Science/Maths) but I haven't heard any startup training/hiring them. Outsourcing giants like Cognizant/Infosys however are an exception but they hire, train and turn these non-engineering graduates into maintenance drones.

3. General apathy of students towards startups.

Most of the students just want to earn money to be self sufficient. The easiest way? Follow the patterns of someone successful, mostly a person selected in outsourcing giants. These companies are a modern version of dusty Government offices and many people just log their time and get a paycheck. Art of computer programming is forgotten and everyone wants to be a Manager/Director is 5 years. This sets a wrong example for new guys and hurts the hacker culture.

P.S. Many startups are doing good work (e.g. Infinitely Beta) and many will succeed, but these factors show why hiring is difficult for startups.

1. Many founders in India found a "startup" just because they have money to capitalise it and nothing better to do. They have 0 tech skills and 0 management ability. The few startups that are doing well here are those founded by technical guys or people who've worked in a certain industry for a while and start a related venture.

2. Startups can't afford to train. They need programmers who'll hit the ground running.

3. Mostly because the startup scene here sucks; it's fucking comical I tell you. Join any indian startup forum and you'll know the story of how poor the quality of startups and their employees is. I leave you with an email I received recently from "OCC Bangalore" (google group for bangalore startups). Also, no offence intended to the few who really are running businesses worth running.

========================================================

Dear All,

I need some tech help.

We need to call these php functions in our jsp files. We can use javascript I hope.

I searched alot on google and I found this: -- <script type="text/javascript"> function test(){ document.getElementById("php_code").innerHTML="<?php for($i=0; $i<10; $i++) echo $i; //maybe a function ?>"; } </script>

<a href="#" style="display:block; color:#000033; font-family:Tahoma; font-size:12px;" onclick="test(); return false;"> test </a> <span id="php_code"> </span> -- But doesnot seem to be working.

Some guys have suggested using this: jqSajax

Background: We are trying to use an existing opensource solution which provides APIs and the same can be used through java and php. We want to use the same through our jsp files. Now part of it we have been able to use through the java webservices they provide, but since they are opensource platform they have missed implementing some of the code in java which is available in php services.

Any ideas? Stuck now :(

Thanks a lot

Reading this made me sad. I thought Can I have the codez Plz mentality runs wild only in outsourcing giants.

And in the Computer Science labs right before a first year assignment is due.

The potential for business is great. But I agree with you regarding pathetic state of startups.

Two of colleagues came in from a famous start up. And I have heard the kind of horror stories, similar to what I faced in large companies.

Start ups are really minified versions of Big Corps. Same linguistic and regional politics, stories of nepotism and making employees slog their bones to dust for paltry monthly pay and not much stocks in return.

In other words, unless its your own start up or you are a co founder. It makes 0 sense to spend the best years of your life working for somebody else's dreams for peanuts in pay and stock.

couldnt agree more on point 1, on point 2: people with bsc degrees are treated as second class citizens of these BigCos, they even have separate policies for these employees.(Beleive me i was one of them).

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