Archive for November, 2006
Welcome to Bengaluru = Bangalore back to Jungle
Back from San Francisco an unusually long queue in the anyway picturesque immigration hall of Bangalore Airport was greeting the disembarking passengers. I thought to myself: Are this the first signs of the name change effective from November 1st ? Has the great move of the government been consistently aligned with the performance of the immigration officials?
I also seem to be one of the last to have realized, but this is no joke but really true. Even the Germany news magazine “Spiegel” took notice. Tataaa: Bangalore has a new name. Bengaluru. Wow. And in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and determination of the state government of Karnataka, two other cities have been blessed, too. Mysore becomes Mysuru and Mangalore Mangaluru. Double wow. Hence: “Wow-Wow”.
Despite my obvious sarcasm, I am careful not to speak from any kind of postcolonial supremacy. It’s rather the expression of my despise for governments, and worse bureaucrats, in general. Why? Because most governments lack any kind of managerial skills, any ability to focus on important matters, not to mention deficits to execute. However, when it comes to riding the populist wave, they all of a sudden excel brilliantly. In this case: Just drive one hour around Bangalore, sorry Bengaluru, and you will immediately realize that, well, this city has, say politely, “other challenges” than changing its name. Admittedly Bangalore does not consist only of Infosys, Wipro and all the other who form the “Silicon Valley of Asia”. There is still an abundance of poverty, lack of empowerment and huge inequality. But still Bangalore has been able to build itself a global brand over the last few years where the city, the state and whole India should rightly be proud of.
What does such a move illustrate? It illustrates that the current government in Karnataka makes pre-emptive, yet useless, concessions to those who are not benefiting from the boom. Fair enough. But this should mean implementing political measures to bring all children to school, revamp the educational system and offer training in English language. The question is: Do you want as a state and as a society be concerned only with yourself or do you feel that you should make yourself fit on the “Next Global Stage” as Kenichi Ohmae puts it in his recommendable book. Do you want to be Finland or Singapore, who have despite their lack of natural resources thrived amazingly with Nokia and high-tect respectively? Finland and Singapore, who have not rested to stare at their navels, but instead have eagerly looked from the inside out, carved out their opportunities and achieved unquestioned excellence in an globalized world; thanks to a motivated workforce and a government setting a supportive framework. Or do you want to take one step forward two steps back and deplete Bangalore into Bengaluru?
Luckily, after screening a few newspapers today in a coffee shop, nobody here seems to care. In all the articles, Bangalore is still Bangalore. And that is pretty good news.
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Web 2.0 Summit = Inspiration 2.0
A 3-day conference is over and it was an absolutely fantastic and worthwhile experience. I have never seen such a density of smart and successful people. And not to forget: such a density of millionaires and billionaires at one spot, who are absolutely easy to talk to. There is no doubt that this climate of unpretentious openness towards each other is culturewise an essential propellant of Silicon Valley’s leading role in the IT-world.
Also I feel that I would ideally have to sleep through 48 hours at one time to digest this impact of new information before I can write properly about it, not to mention make it actionable for my own businesses. Unfortunately awake since 2.30 am local time because of jetlag. As I did not really get adopted to Pacific Time, it’s now high time to get back to India today. (Will try to grab the new Sony eReader somewhere before leaving.)
On of the best session was with Ram Shriram, first investor in Google and CEO of Sharpalo (left on the sofa).
His key message was: Today in the “Web 2.0″ age you don’t need a lot of money to start a company. His investment-sweetspot lies hence between $100 k an 1 mn, clearly warning that too much money would not do a company any good. First, the founders tend to de-focus with too much capital to employ and second, the maths don’t work out with respect to an exit. If you overfund in the beginning, get subsequent rounds with ever higher valuations the return at exit would have to be extremely high to repay that money with the IRR VCs are looking at. Given the fact that the IPO-madness of the “New Economy” is rarely an option (also given the complex requirements of the Sarbanes Oxley-Act), a trade sale with usually way less than $ 1bn seems much more likely. If, however, intitially too much money had been pumped into a company, the founders would end up not really enjoying what they expect in the light of the preferential clauses given to investors.
Just on a sideline: The current Red Herring has a story (printed edition) on Westerners increasingsly going for work to India where I also get featured. And: The Spiegel-Article from recently is now available in the English-edition of the magazine.
Web 2.0 Summit: Heavy Dose
Since yesterday when it started, I virtually missed not a single session of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. I wrote a bit more in German on the eLAB-Blog. Here an impression von Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, in a conversation with the host Tim O’Reilly.
Sunset at the Golden Gate in San Francisco
Thought of documenting the next sunset I get to see after the previous one day before in Bombay. Thanks to the “follow the sun” principle and being in transit around 24 hours via Frankfurt to the U.S., I arrived in the beautiful city of San Francisco.
It’s the Web 2.0 conference which starts tomorrow and goes till Thursday. And the overall credo has to be: “There is so much value out there” ;-)
Sunset in Bombay
Just a few beautiful impressions from the sunset half an hour ago in my favourite Indian city Bombay.
Whenever I am in Bombay, my choice of hotel depends where I have to do business as travel through traffic can be a 2 hours mid-size tragedy. So when I stay in South of Mumbai, I usually book the Taj Mahal Hotel directly at the Gateway of India, my favourite one in the Juhu-Beach area is the Sun ‘n Sands. The saga goes that Bollywood stars used to book them into this hotel, less with their wives and more with their mistresses …
One of the cultural specialties one has to get used to in India is to be stared at by Indian men. I got stared from the beachside, but this time I retaliated with my camera. And I would like to emphasize that they are not posing for the picture. This is how it looks when they stare.
Ah, ever cared to see Indian men holding hands when walking in the streets? Here we are for this little episode …
Have a great Sunday.
Guest Speaking at INSEAD on India
Yesterday I had the honour of being invited by INSEAD, a business school, as a guest speaker and member of a panel for around 20 Danish executives within a curriculum focused entirely on globalization. Organized by the Singapore Campus of the school, the approach was very smart: Fly the participants for one week to India where you blend top-level teaching with meetings of companies and entrepreneurs “on the ground”.
It was about two months back that Aparna Dogra from INSEAD told me about the project and asked me if I was interested to speak about my experience. Of course I was. So I joined for lunch at the venue, the Taj Landsend hotel in Mumbai (Bombay), to meet also the two professors responsible for the teaching part: Christoph Zott and Jonathan Story, absolutely amazing fellow where I had to realize what difference they made to the kind of professors I used to have in Augsburg during my own studies. To say that there are super-smart is obvious and certainly that kind of prerequisite you need teach at INSEAD, but beyond that, they were at the latest state of research, cross-disciplined, very curious in constantly asking questions and completely service-oriented taking the feedback from their students extremely serious. And what I liked most, they were absolutely approachable, easy to talk to and fun. Quite some difference to the distant behavior, sometimes even to the extent of arrogance, that I remember.
What was the session about? All together, there were three people on the panel, with Rohan Vaziralli, Head of India of Estée Lauder, Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm and Passionfund and myself. Each of us had around 20 minutes to share his experience on the following topics which Christoph aka Prof. Zott had suggested:
a. What made you become interested and involved in business-building with(in) India?
b. How is business-building in India different from business-building in other countries?
c. What are the similarities, i.e., what lessons from other contexts could you apply in India?
d. What lessons about building a business in India did you learn?
e. What are the three (or more) things that you wish somebody would have told you before?
After three years in India, I indeed had to sit down around one hour the day before to condense the many, many stories out that I could tell easily over a whole day into 20 minutes and at the same time bring some meaningful economic and entrepreneurial framework to it. And I came well within the time. During the next part, the students were asked to present some business ideas where India would play a major role, either for example as a sourcing destination, as a target market for export or even a concept targeted entirely for the Indian domestic market. And us three from the panel were providing constructive feedback and getting into very good discussions with the participants and professors.
It was an amazing and also rewarding experience to see that without really having gotten aware of it, I had gathered really quite some comprehensive experience on this great country and the way to make your way through. What is more, I found the event very much fun so that I decided that I will talk more often publicly on India.
Today, day off, although still a bit of work on the computer. As I was talking to some friends in Munich on the phone who told me that it had started to snow, here my seasons’ greetings from my outsourced workstation today :-)
Auswandern und Demokratieproblem
Möchte mich ganz herzlich für die zahlreichen Mails nach dem Spiegel-Artikel bedanken, ebenso wie die zahlreichen Ermunterungen. Was mich aber erfahrungsgemäß fast noch mehr freut, sind kritische Töne, insbesondere wenn sie vor einem vergleichbaren Lebenshintergrund ausgesprochen werden. So schreibt ein von mir hoch geschätzer Expat-Zeitgenosse aus Bangalore, der namentlich nicht genannt werden möchte, zu meiner Deutschland-Kritik:
“Selbstverstaendlich bist Du, mit Deiner in Deutschland genossenen Bildung, hier erfolgreicher als der lokal ausgebildete Inder, der erst vor kurzem von Hosur nach Bangalore kam. Aber bitte leugne nicht die Errungenschaften der westlichen Welt (nicht die Homo-Ehe) fuer Deinen (kurzfristigen) beruflichen Erfolg. Das scheint mir naemlich bei vielen westlichen Unternehme(r)n der Fall, die behaupten, Indien sei so toll.
Beispielsweise predigten Unternehmen aus Industrienationen bisher, dass bspw. elektrische Fensterheber, Klimaanlage, ABS, Airbags, Navigationshilfe, Multifunktionslenkrad, Memorysitze, von innen verstellbare Leuchtweitenregulierung!!! etc. pp. in jedes Auto gehoerten. Jetzt ploetzlich heisst es, im “Westen” sei alles ueberzogen und Ingenieure aus Industrienationen seien nicht dazu in der Lage preiswerte, pragmatische Loesungen zu finden. Und derartige Aussagen kommen oft von denselben Unternehmen!
Verstehe mich nicht falsch: natuerlich muss man als Unternehmer oder Unternehmen diesen Markt bedienen. Aber keinesfalls unter Aufgabe des “zuhause” bereits erreichten. Das waere etwas kurzsichtig.”
Besten Dank. Der kurze Hinweis auf die „Homo-Ehe“ scheint auf meinen vorletzten Blog-Eintrag zurückzugehen, wo ich mich kritisch über diese neue rechtliche Institution geäußert habe. Ich mache in der Tat keinen Hehl daraus, dass ich die „Homo-Ehe“ als vollkommenes Überziehen des individuellen Freiheitsbegriffes nicht unbedingt als eine großartige kuturelle oder gesellschaftliche Errungenschaft ansehe.
Ansonsten möchte ich Dir wie folgt antworten: Ich verstehe relativ genau worauf Du hinaus willst: Man lobt auf Unternehmer- und Top-Management-Ebene in diesem Fall konkret Indien in den höchsten Himmel, während man Deutschland leichtfertig verfemt. Dieses gegensätzliche Spannungsfeld wäre tatsächlich falsch, falls es überhaupt in dieser Ausprägung existiert. Ich habe mir vorgenommen mal ein Buch über die Frustrationen zu schreiben, die man so in Indien erlebt. Jeder, der eine Zeit lang hier verbracht hat, weiß wovon ich spreche. Und wie ich auch unumwunden in meinem Blog-Eintrag eingeräumt habe: Aus der Distanz habe ich mein Heimatland in vielen Bereichen wieder zu schätzen gelernt. Weil das Gras eben auf der anderen Seite nicht automatisch und überall grüner ist.
Auf Deinen Hinweis mit den „gleichen Unternehmern“ möchte ich folgendes antworten: Nachdem ich mich leidenschaftlich zu einem wirtschaftlich freien System bekenne, vertraue ich darauf, dass es der Markt wird schon regeln wird. Deutsche Autokäufer sind zurecht die Anspruchsvollsten auf der Welt, in Indien beginnt aus über 1 Milliarde Menschen die so genannte „Mittelschicht“ mit 150 bis 200 Mio. Menschen erst so langsam in die Nähe zu kommen, sich ein Auto überhaupt leisten zu können. Das bedeutet, dass eine für unsere Verhältnisse abgespeckte, ja vielleicht sogar rückständige Ausstattung, für den indischen Käufer allemal „gut genug“ ist. Dazu fällt mir noch die alte Binsenweisheit ein: „Lieber schlecht gefahren als gut gegangen.“ Und falls ein deutscher Kunde irgendwann zur Auffassung kommt, dass er auch lieber so eine Austattung Llight aus Inden fahren möchte, bitte sehr, das ist Markt, das ist die Freiheit zu wählen, das ist die Freheit zu kaufen oder nicht zu kaufen. Und das ist eben auch die Freiheit das eigenes Leben zu gestalten.
Letzteres scheint mir, und ich komme auf meine Deutschlandkritik zurück, in unserem Heimatland nicht wirklich in letzter Konsequenz kulturprägend zu sein. Und so wundert es mich nicht, dass ich heute bei Spiegel-Online lese, die Deutschen zweifelten wie noch nie am Funktionieren des Systems Demokratie. Was dann aber folgt liest sich aber leider wie das bekannte alte Leiden: Nicht die Verkrustung beispielsweise eines aufgeblähten Föderalstaates oder die Reformunfähigkeit der Regierenden werden genannten, sondern es geht um das jammernd vorgetragene „Gerechtigkeitsproblem“.
Ich werde immer wieder gefragt, ob es so ein Schlüssererlebnis gab, als ich von Deutschland endgültig den Kanal vollhatte. Und das gibt es wirklich: Meine Tätigkeit bei Lycos Europe als Unterhaltungschef war wie im ganzen „Europa-Team“ mit einer Menge Reisetätigkeit verbunden. Und viele von uns nutzen die Gelegenheit, ein dienstliches Meeting z.B. in London auf einen Freitag zu legen, das Wochenende über dort zu bleiben, das Hotel freilich aus privater Tasche zu bezahlen und am Montag mit einem frühen Flug wieder pünktlich im Büro zu sein. So weit, so gut. Der Firma entstehen für den Flug die identischen Kosten. Plötzlich bekommen wir von unserer Controlling-Abteilung eine Mail, in der wir aufgefordert werden unsere Meetings nicht mehr an den Rand des Wochenendes zu legen. Unsere Wirtschaftsprüfer hatten davor gewarnt, dass das Finanzamt den „geldwerten Vorteil“ der Flugkosten auf der Einkommensteuerebene versteuern könnte, weil wegen des Wochenend-Aufenthalts unterstellt würde, die ganze Reise sei eigentlich privat veranlasst. Außerdem entstünden Lycos für die sehr aufwändige Administration dieses Verfahrens erhebliche Kosten.
Hm. Nix Vorteil: Nachteil. Das war aber auch genug. Und ich schreibe hier was ich auch sonst in meiner mir eigenen Ungeschliffenheit zu sagen pflege: Es geht diesen Scheißstaat einen Dreck an, wie ich meine Wochenenden verbringe. Dann halt nicht. Dann halt nicht mehr Deutschland. Und ich lebe momentan von so einem Mist wirklich sehr unbelastet. Das Schlimme, um auf den Ausgangspunkt der Überlegungen zurückzukommen, ist jedoch das solche Regelungen von einer Mehrheit der Bevölkerung nicht als Diktatur der Bürokraten angesehen wird, sondern vielmehr als angemessene Verwirklichung eines aus Sozialneid vollkommen deformieren Gerechtigkeitsbegriffes.
Insofern komme ich zum selben Ergebnis wie diese neueste Untersuchung: Ich habe auch den Glauben an die Demokratie in Deutschland verloren, nur komme aus einer völlig anderen Richtung. Und ich sehe den Graben als so groß an, dass ich ihn gegenwärtig für unüberwindlich halte. Ergebnis: Ich bleibe wo ich bin, lebe wirklich gut, eine Rückkehr nach Deutschland steht nicht zur Diskussion.
Spiegel-Article now online
Thanks to everyone who found the opportunity, especially after quite some time, to drop me a few lines of e-mail after the story about German emigrants has been published on Monday in the SPIEGEL. Appreciate a lot your kind words. And: Yes, yes, I am doing fine here in India. And, who had not the chance to read the magazine in printed form, the article is now online here.
Bangalore-Oktoberfest with Minister Huber
I thought I had escaped for this year, but it caught me again. The Oktoberfest 2006, this time in Bangalore. It was really fun, seeing my friends and having a bit of Bavarian flair in South India.
Beer was from Kingfisher (drinkable), an Indian guy asked me how I rated the allegedly Bavarian food. I replied “2 out of 10″, but that did not really matter, the overall setting was really entertaining.
Guest of Honour, by the way, was the Bavarian State Minister for Economy Erwin Huber:
In a little contest on the eLAB-Blog here I made a comparison between a professional TV team and myself with “user generated content”. For that purpose I even shot a little video. Ein Prosit der Gemütlichgkeit and enjoy:
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