San Francisco – Silicon Valley is booming again. I do not have to follow the stock market to reach this conclusion – my judgement is based on the length of the wait time these days for lunch at Madras Café in Sunnyvale, peak hour freeway congestion, and the number of Ferraris recently sold in the local dealership.
There is an air of breakthrough everywhere. Apple Computer hit a home run again with the iPhone 5, Google seems to be opening new profit opportunities every day, and Yahoo is continuing to seek the optimal CEO.
A three billion dollar cloud of fresh VC cash is hovering over the valley looking for the next big thing. Hopefully, the money people will be a bit smarter this time. Last time they promoted the social computing phenomena and several companies selling intangible products went IPO. Unfortunately, many of these companies are turning out to be like chocolate covered bars of soap.
Is the Silicon Valley dream still alive for Indians today? The answer is yes, but it is also alive for everybody else – except the rules of engagement have dramatically changed. These days it’s a bigger challenge to make a breakthrough.
Hardware development and manufacturing are gone from the valley, perhaps permanently. Software mass-production is outsourced entirely. Networking companies are struggling to find differentiation in order to provide bandwidth consistent with today’s mobile computing and data security needs.
Gone are the days when one could finish an MBA and make a two page PowerPoint presentation to raise millions of dollars after the second VC meeting. High-tech is a bigger game nowadays, encompassing resources all over the planet. The opportunities are more complex.
The need for the best brains in the world is always a constant in Silicon Valley. Sure, Stanford and Berkeley are continuing to produce great scientists and engineers, but they cannot meet the insatiable demand. Approximately one hundred thousand engineering professionals of Indian origin are currently working in computer software, services, and biotechnology companies in the valley.
I was very fortunate to meet a few students graduating from IIT Kharagpur, my alma mater, during my last visit to India earlier this year. Many of them had already been snapped up by the big names based in the Valley with unprecedented salaries and compensation packages.
However, due to the stagnant economy, many middle managers here are out of work. The other day I went to a fish curry dinner party in an Indian household in San Jose. The food was superb but sadly many of the guests in their late forties and fifties had been out of a job for months.
In Silicon Valley, the poverty line starts at income below $70,000 per year. I will not be surprised if many engineers return from the Valley in the near future to benefit from demand and boom in their country of origin.
The past thirty-eight years in Silicon Valley have been very exciting for this Delhi born engineer – a big mainframe company transferred me to the valley in 1974. Since then I have lived here and watched the valley go through its many changes. I myself have started three companies.
The first one was a wash; the second one delivered a handsome return to the investors, and my current enterprise is a one hundred percent privately owned mechanical design software company.
I look forward to sharing with you my Indo-American observations of the business, food, culture, gossip, and life in Silicon Valley – some people call it the best place to live in the world. I think the best place to live in the world is where your friends are.
Shyamal Roy
Shyamal Roy, born in Old Delhi in India and a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, received the Distinguished Service Award 2012 from IIT Kharagpur for his photojournalism work related to the institution. Roy lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
www.shyamalroy.com