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"Are you marrying me or
the company?" One of the engineers on our team at Komli told me that the
other day. This is probably one of the best lines I have heard in a
while. He was talking to one of his friends about joining a start-up and
his friend was concerned that if he joined that startup, his parents and
his fianc�'s
parents would be very concerned about the stability of his job; they
might even break-off the engagement. The engineer on our team didn't
understand why everyone was so focused on his friend's job.
When I got engaged I was
actually unemployed. I had just left the start-up I had previously
founded when I graduated from college (Chipshot.com, an online
e-commerce company focused on golf), and was figuring out what to do
next. Nobody called off the engagement or threatened or even hinted at
it.
This stark contrast
helped me realize a huge disconnect in India's ability to really
innovate and build companies like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Oracle
(interestingly enough, all four of those companies - four of the best
technology companies ever started - were all started by people who
dropped out of school and NEVER had a full-time job before they started
their companies). Generally speaking, youngsters in India are still too
concerned about the stability of their jobs and getting married.
There are both logical
and emotional arguments as to why this might be the case. I am going to
present some thoughts on why this concern with job stability just
doesn't make sense if you are really good at what you do and are
confident in that.
Reason #1: The
spoils go to those that take risks - the ones who work at start-ups,
very early on.
Microsoft is the most successful technology company of all time (though
Google is hot on its heels). The first guy at Microsoft made about $50
billion (Bill Gates). The second guy (Paul Allen) made about $25
billion. Steve Ballmer who was one of the early few and joined in a
leadership role made about $15 billion. If you were in the first 50
people and got 1/10th of 1% (common for a start-up today), you made
about $200M. So the first guy made $50B, the 50th guy made $200M. Guess
how much the 1,000th employee made, probably about $20M. And the
10,000th employee maybe made $2M. This is in the most successful
technology company of all time. |
