Founders of vibrant and dynamic Indian startups have now shed their apprehensions when it comes to voicing their opinions. And if the case is between Snapdeal and Flipkart, two competitors who are slogging it out to gain market share in India, then the battle reaches an epic status.
A trend which is quite popular within the Silicon Valley eco-system, Indian entrepreneurs have now decided to express their strongest of thoughts without any remorse or guilt. And well, in some cases, without any regard to respect and experience as well (read Rahul Yadav).
How It Began With Snapdeal
Few days back, Rohit Bansal, co-founder and COO of Snapdeal.com said that they are not able to find quality programmers in India.
He said, “If you think about the landscape in India, not too many product companies got built here”
He was speaking with Wall Street Journal, a US publication; and his views were primarily meant for US programmers as Snapdeal has intensified their hiring process in the USA. As per the article, Snapdeal has recently hired one senior Cloud Specialist from a Silicon Valley startup, and they are seeking a dozen more.
He also said, “Many of these people moved to the U.S. because opportunities for doing (such) high-quality work were not available in India. Now those opportunities are not only available in India, but (India) is a more exciting place.”
This clearly indicates that he is trying to lure programmers and developers based USA to come over to India.
Flipkart Takes a Dig
There are around 18.2 million software developers in the world (as of 2013), out of which, 3.6 million are in USA and 2.75 million are in India. As per projections, by 2018, India will have 5.2 million programmers, which will be the highest in the world.
In 2008, Indian Govt. did a survey which showed that around 30-35% of all scientists in NASA are Indians; which includes both contractors and full time scientists.
Considering the might of Indian programming talent, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal couldn’t resist, and in response to Rohit Bansal, he tweeted: “Don’t blame India for your failure to hire great engineers. They join for culture and challenge.”
The clash reached its crescendo when Rohit Bansal from Snapdeal replies to Sachin Bansal’s tweet, via another tweet wherein he makes it clear that Snapdeal is one among the best places to work in India. He tweeted, “Talking abt culture, @snapdeal happened to be rated top 10 places to work in India, in case headline hunters missed.”
Additionally, Rohit also published a blog, wherein he clarified that he was misquoted on the story regarding Indian talent and Indian programmers.
In the blog, he said, “It is never a fun feeling to be misquoted (or quoted out of context), and hurts when people do that as a way to get headlines for themselves. Hence I thought I’ll substantiate on what we said, and clarify this to our team, users, country and the world.”
But Rahul Yadav Trolls Unnecessarily & Without Any Logic
So far so good: An entrepreneur shares his views on the hiring scene, another entrepreneur takes a dig and the first entrepreneur gives an explanation. No personal offense or unsavory remarks.
But yesterday, out of his habit, Housing.com co-founder made an unnecessary and irrelevant Facebook post on this issue. And surprisingly, the target of his ‘weird sense of humor’ was not Rohit or Sachin Bansal, but a senior entrepreneur and member of NASSCOM executive council: Ravi Gururaj.
After this incident broke out between Snapdeal and Flipkart, Ravi Gururaj wrote an article on YourStory, wherein he has shared his own personal views on the issue and tried to find the solution which is actually quite scary.
Rahul Yadav, after reading this interesting piece of content, shared on his Facebook wall:
“Ye mote Gururaj uncle har chhoti cheez par article kyu likh dete hain”
Translation: “Why this fatty Gururaj uncle writes article on every small thing”
Sometimes, if a person doesn’t have anything positive to contribute in a discussion, the best option is to keep quiet. It seems Rahul Yadav needs some serious consultation and education in communications and articulation of thoughts in a positive manner.