03-08-2004, 08:53 PM
Cross posting from another thread:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/opinion/...Ed%2fColumnists
THE NEW YORK TIMES
<b>OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Secret of Our Sauce
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN</b>
Published: March 7, 2004
BANGALORE, India
Yamini Narayanan is an Indian-born 35-year-old with a Ph.D. in
economics from the University of Oklahoma. After graduation, she worked for a
U.S. computer company in Virginia and recently moved back to Bangalore
with her husband to be closer to family. When I asked her how she felt
about the outsourcing of jobs from her adopted country, America, to her
native country, India, she responded with a revealing story:
"I just read about a guy in America who lost his job to India and he
made a T-shirt that said, `I lost my job to India and all I got was this
[lousy] T-shirt.' And he made all kinds of money." Only in America, she
said, shaking her head, would someone figure out how to profit from his
own unemployment. And that, she insisted, was the reason America need
not fear outsourcing to India: America is so much more innovative a
place than any other country.
There is a reason the "next big thing" almost always comes out of
America, said Mrs. Narayanan. When she and her husband came back to live in
Bangalore and enrolled their son in a good private school, he found
himself totally stifled because of the emphasis on rote learning - rather
than the independent thinking he was exposed to in his U.S. school.
They had to take him out and look for another, more avant-garde private
school. "America allows you to explore your mind," she said. The whole
concept of outsourcing was actually invented in America, added her
husband, Sean, because no one else figured it out.
The Narayanans are worth listening to at this time of rising insecurity
over white-collar job losses to India. America is the greatest engine
of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime
soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme
freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady
immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to
trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a
venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning
them into global products.
"You have this whole ecosystem [that constitutes] a unique crucible for
innovation," said Nandan Nilekani, the C.E.O. of Infosys, India's
I.B.M. "I was in Europe the other day and they were commiserating about the
400,000 [European] knowledge workers who have gone to live in the U.S.
because of the innovative environment there. The whole process where
people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a
product and mainstream it - that can only be done in the U.S. It can't
be done sitting in India. The Indian part of the equation [is to help]
these innovative companies bring their products to the market quicker,
cheaper and better, which increases the innovative cycle there. It is a
complimentarity we need to enhance."
That is so right. As Robert Hof, a tech writer for Business Week,
noted, U.S. tech workers "must keep creating leading edge technologies that
make their companies more productive - especially innovations that
spark entirely new markets." The same tech innovations that produced
outsourcing, he noted, also produced eBay, Amazon.com, Google and thousands
of new jobs along with them.
This is America's real edge. Sure Bangalore has a lot of engineering
schools, but the local government is rife with corruption; half the city
has no sidewalks; there are constant electricity blackouts; the rivers
are choked with pollution; the public school system is dysfunctional;
beggars dart in and out of the traffic, which is in constant gridlock;
and the whole infrastructure is falling apart. The big high-tech firms
here reside on beautiful, walled campuses, because they maintain their
own water, electricity and communications systems. They thrive by
defying their political-economic environment, not by emerging from it.
What would Indian techies give for just one day of America's rule of
law; its dependable, regulated financial markets; its efficient,
noncorrupt bureaucracy; and its best public schools and universities? They'd
give a lot.
These institutions, which nurture innovation, are our real crown jewels
that must be protected - not the 1 percent of jobs that might be
outsourced. But it is precisely these crown jewels that can be squandered if
we become lazy, or engage in mindless protectionism, or persist in
radical tax cutting that can only erode the strength and quality of our
government and educational institutions.
Our competitors know the secret of our sauce. But do we?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/opinion/...Ed%2fColumnists
THE NEW YORK TIMES
<b>OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Secret of Our Sauce
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN</b>
Published: March 7, 2004
BANGALORE, India
Yamini Narayanan is an Indian-born 35-year-old with a Ph.D. in
economics from the University of Oklahoma. After graduation, she worked for a
U.S. computer company in Virginia and recently moved back to Bangalore
with her husband to be closer to family. When I asked her how she felt
about the outsourcing of jobs from her adopted country, America, to her
native country, India, she responded with a revealing story:
"I just read about a guy in America who lost his job to India and he
made a T-shirt that said, `I lost my job to India and all I got was this
[lousy] T-shirt.' And he made all kinds of money." Only in America, she
said, shaking her head, would someone figure out how to profit from his
own unemployment. And that, she insisted, was the reason America need
not fear outsourcing to India: America is so much more innovative a
place than any other country.
There is a reason the "next big thing" almost always comes out of
America, said Mrs. Narayanan. When she and her husband came back to live in
Bangalore and enrolled their son in a good private school, he found
himself totally stifled because of the emphasis on rote learning - rather
than the independent thinking he was exposed to in his U.S. school.
They had to take him out and look for another, more avant-garde private
school. "America allows you to explore your mind," she said. The whole
concept of outsourcing was actually invented in America, added her
husband, Sean, because no one else figured it out.
The Narayanans are worth listening to at this time of rising insecurity
over white-collar job losses to India. America is the greatest engine
of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime
soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme
freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady
immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to
trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a
venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning
them into global products.
"You have this whole ecosystem [that constitutes] a unique crucible for
innovation," said Nandan Nilekani, the C.E.O. of Infosys, India's
I.B.M. "I was in Europe the other day and they were commiserating about the
400,000 [European] knowledge workers who have gone to live in the U.S.
because of the innovative environment there. The whole process where
people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a
product and mainstream it - that can only be done in the U.S. It can't
be done sitting in India. The Indian part of the equation [is to help]
these innovative companies bring their products to the market quicker,
cheaper and better, which increases the innovative cycle there. It is a
complimentarity we need to enhance."
That is so right. As Robert Hof, a tech writer for Business Week,
noted, U.S. tech workers "must keep creating leading edge technologies that
make their companies more productive - especially innovations that
spark entirely new markets." The same tech innovations that produced
outsourcing, he noted, also produced eBay, Amazon.com, Google and thousands
of new jobs along with them.
This is America's real edge. Sure Bangalore has a lot of engineering
schools, but the local government is rife with corruption; half the city
has no sidewalks; there are constant electricity blackouts; the rivers
are choked with pollution; the public school system is dysfunctional;
beggars dart in and out of the traffic, which is in constant gridlock;
and the whole infrastructure is falling apart. The big high-tech firms
here reside on beautiful, walled campuses, because they maintain their
own water, electricity and communications systems. They thrive by
defying their political-economic environment, not by emerging from it.
What would Indian techies give for just one day of America's rule of
law; its dependable, regulated financial markets; its efficient,
noncorrupt bureaucracy; and its best public schools and universities? They'd
give a lot.
These institutions, which nurture innovation, are our real crown jewels
that must be protected - not the 1 percent of jobs that might be
outsourced. But it is precisely these crown jewels that can be squandered if
we become lazy, or engage in mindless protectionism, or persist in
radical tax cutting that can only erode the strength and quality of our
government and educational institutions.
Our competitors know the secret of our sauce. But do we?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->