Democracy For Nepal: Silicon Valley

Showing posts with label Silicon Valley. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

The Warped Reality Of Nepal's Ruling Elite

The Warped Reality Of Nepal's Ruling Elite
Or Why You Should See The Protests In Front Of The UN For What It Truly Is

Human Rights Watch Report: Like We Are Not Nepali

Do not be fooled by the Nepalis protesting in front of the United Nations today. If this keeps on for too long, you might as well see ISIS sympathizers, or Assad supporters doing the same in due course of time. Because these people are rooting for people guilty of similar crimes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi did more for the earthquake victims of Nepal than any other single person on earth, and he started doing within minutes of the earthquake striking. The busiest person on earth took time out of his schedule and acted as if an earthquake had struck his own country. I’d know. I followed the earthquake’s aftermath for all my waking hours for weeks in a row. Modi’s role was astounding, heartwarming, and the only ray of hope for many for long.
Nepal’s ruling elite, the Khas, are people who literally all of them, 100% of them, migrated from India over the centuries, primarily fleeing the invading Mughals. Today Indophobia is their central organizing principle in Kathmandu. It is like a Harvard study showing all homophobic people are gay. How do you explain this irrationality? It is easy.
Nepal is not a democracy. Nepal is proof sham elections, rigged elections don’t a democracy make. The last elections held in Nepal were thoroughly rigged. The state security agencies overwhelmingly dominated by the Khas rigged the elections so as to strengthen the status quo parties.
Nepal is a corrupt country. 50% of the country’s annual budget is put to personal use by about 50,000 people in the country. It is a country of 30 million. It is relatives of those 50,000 people who are running up and down the street in front of the United Nations today.
Coming to America is social mobility in Nepal that mostly only the ruling Khas elite can afford. And these “protests” are proof. Similar protests were organized in London when Prime Minister Modi recently visited.
Even the corrupt, and the unfair, and the prejudiced have a right to hold rallies.
But this is also, at some level, casteism. Narendra Modi’s lower middle class, and lower caste background is offensive to these ruling Brahmins of Kathmandu. It is amazing how their Brahminic ideology is immune to Modi’s political stature, gifts, amazing goodwill, and sheer power. India is a large, powerful country in South Asia, and Nepal is 200% dependent on India for pretty much everything. But casteist Brahmins of Nepal seem to think he is but a passing fluke. He has not lasted a thousand years like their casteist ideology, and he will be gone in a few years unlike their casteist ideology, or so they think.
Within weeks of the earthquake striking the hashtag #GoBackIndia started trending on Twitter in Nepal. How do you explain that? After Modi did so much for the earthquake victims. Who is on Twitter in Nepal? Not the masses. The same 50,000 people who put 50% of the country’s budget to personal use are the people on Twitter in Nepal.
You’d think that after the massive earthquake the politicians of Nepal would set aside all political work to focus on relief work for something like six months. But no. They instead figured out the post-earthquake scenario was actually perfect timing to push a summarily unequal constitution down the country’s throat. The earthquake was a godsend to them. The people were deemed too weak to protest. And they were. As inhuman as that logic sounds, that is what happened. The ruling politicians immediately started acting like the earthquake did not even happen. These people were not in shock. They really are that unfeeling.
The international community has pledged four billion dollars in aid for the earthquake victims. That was months ago. India’s pledge is fully 25% of that offer. And they are still managing to blame Modi for the fact that that money has amazingly gone untouched. Untouched! How do you explain that? The way corruption works in Nepal is, they wait until the last minute to spend the money. And once the deadline looms, as it does in this case at the end of the year, the money then is spent in a hurry. Because in that chaos looting becomes so much easier. There are no plans to take those four billion dollars to the earthquake victims. But there are massive schemes by those 50,000 people to loot the four billion dollars. That has been their bread and butter for decades. Nothing new is going on.
The earthquake victims really do face a brutal winter. But the blame is being placed in the wrong place.
The earthquake victims are being held hostage by the ruling elite in Nepal. The earthquake victims are Janajatis who have been marginalized by the Nepali state for centuries. And that marginalization sees continuity in the country’s new constitution that was supposed to give them a path to equality.
The new constitution of Nepal, if it goes unchallenged, will be like a permanent earthquake to the Janajatis of Nepal. Ask the people protesting in front of the United Nations today. They are all practically relatives to the ruling elite in Nepal. These are people who feel the earthquake victims have not had it bad enough.
It is the Madhesis of the southern plains who are fighting for themselves as well as the Janajatis. The Madhesi protests have gone past three months now. For the first few weeks they were hounded out of their district headquarters. Close to 50 were killed in contravention to national and international law, all duly recorded in a Human Rights Watch report. These people protesting in front of the UN are the Nepali Assad supporters. They sure have a right to protest. But ask them what they are protesting. They are protesting because they think they have a right to uphold human rights abuses.
In recent weeks the Madhesis have resorted to protesting at the Nepal India border. It has been a weapon of last resort. The ruling elite had the option weeks ago to heed their demands and make constitutional amendments accordingly. They have refused to do so. Instead they have been doing what they have always been doing. They have been engaging in India bashing. India is being blamed for the fact that Madhesis have been protesting.
These people in front of the UN fundamentally believe in a hierarchical social, political order. To them that is landscape. To them that is as natural as hills. Or the craters on the moon. It is an eery reality but it is what it is. Don’t let them fool you into thinking Modi is the reason Nepal’s earthquake victims might be facing a harsh winter. The fact that the man who has done more than any other person on earth for Nepal’s earthquake victims is being blamed for the sad plight of the Nepal earthquake victims should tell you. These are people with warped mindsets. They don’t deal with reality and facts. They don’t deal with logic.
Nepal is a human hostage situation. The ruling elite in Kathmandu stands between the four billion dollars pledged by the international community, primarily India, and the earthquake victims, who are mostly Janajati, marginalized. The ruling Khas elite has inflicted massive structural inequality upon those Janajatis for over 250 years now. The earthquake has been seen as an “opportunity” by the ruling Khas elite to make those structural inequalities permanent. The earthquake victims, in a weak position to begin with, have been deemed too weak, weakened by the earthquake to protest.
Thank God the Madhesis are protesting, on behalf of Madhesis, but also the Janajatis.
The Madhesis, vastly marginalized in Nepal, are few in number in America. Close to 40% in Nepal, they are not even 1% of the Nepalis in America. They now find all so-called Nepali organizations in America are deaf to their just cause. An ideology of ethnic superiority is being espoused to project a false image that Modi is the enemy of Nepal and Nepal’s earthquake victims. True, Modi has been inconvenient to the unjust ruling class in Nepal. But then he is a democrat. He rose up the ranks listening to ordinary people. It is in Modi’s instincts to listen to the millions of protesting Madhesis of Nepal.
Cut through the fog. The protests in front of the UN today are designed to hoodwink you. Your sympathies should not go with these protesters, but the tens of millions in Nepal they have been subjugating for centuries. Ask them as to why they have so utterly, completely ignored Nepal’s earthquake victims for all these months. Ask them why they so refuse to meet the just demands of the Madhesis. Ask them the simple questions.
Modi has done more for Nepal’s earthquake victims than any other person. It is Nepal’s ruling elite that has treated those earthquake victims like enemies. It is Nepal’s corrupt ruling elite that has for months refused to touch the four billion dollars pledged by the global community for relief work for those earthquake victims. Not Modi. They should be blaming themselves. Instead they are blaming Modi. These protesters in front of the UN don’t have their facts right. Soon enough, Assad supporters are also going to march near here.
The very communities of Nepal that have earned so much goodwill for themselves and for the country at large, like the Sherpas, and the Tamangs, and the Gurungs, and the Limbus, are the Janajatis these ruling Khas elite are hellbent on subjugating for yet another century. Don’t be fooled by them. Stand by those Sherpas. Global voices matter.
Buddha was a Madhesi.

एनआरएन अमेरिकाका अध्यक्ष डा. केशव पौडेलले भारतीय नाकावन्दिको विरोध गर्दै नोभेम्वर १७ का दिन न्यूयोर्कमा हुने विरोध कार्यक्रममा सहभागी हुन सबैलाई आव्हान गर्नु भएको छ ।
Posted by Baltimore Khabar on Monday, November 16, 2015

NRN USA (Non-Resident Nepali Association) protested India Government's blockade to Nepal in front of United Nations...
Posted by Pradeep Thapa on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

STOP Blockade IndiaYou Are Now Naked In Front Of World #NepalChokedByIndia
Posted by Jimmy Gurung on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

भोली बुधवार तीन दल का अध्यक्ष र मधेसवादी दल का अध्यक्ष बिच निर्नायक र अन्तिम वार्ता हुँदैछ प्रचन्द बाबु को पहल मा । छथी माइया ले सबैलाई दिमाग देओस ।
Posted by Mahesh Yadav Adhikari on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Posted by C.k. Sah on Monday, November 16, 2015

१९६० पूर्व काठमाडौँबाहिर नेरु नभएर भारु प्रचलनमा थियो । त्यस्तै मधेसका स्कुलमा राष्ट्रिय गीत ‘जनमनगण नायक हे...’ थियो । ...
Posted by Souvidhya Manoz on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

FB 1151 - Chhat Pooja manayi gayi Mumbai mein samudra ke kinaare, surya ast hone ke samay ..Ek aisa tyoohaar ji adhiktar Bihar mein manaya jaata hai ..
Posted by Amitabh Bachchan on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Posted by Kanak Mani Dixit on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Posted by C.k. Sah on Monday, November 16, 2015

"निगमले तेल वितरण पारदर्शी नगर्दा सरकारकै संरक्षणमा तेलको #कालोबजारी भइरहेको छ" https://t.co/yLP9W3VY2P #नागरिक
Posted by Guna Raj Luitel on Monday, November 16, 2015

जहाँ जहाँ पहादिहरुले भारत को बिरोध गर्दैछ त्यो देश को सरकार र जनता ले थाहा पाउदैछ १० जनाले बनाएको सम्बिधान र मधेस मा गरेको दमन बारे । #welcometoIndia
Posted by Mahesh Yadav Adhikari on Monday, November 16, 2015

आज २०७२ कार्तिक २२ । जनकपुर में आन्दोलनकारीयों ने सांस्कृतिक झलक सहित बिरोध प्रदर्शन किया ।
Posted by Brikhesh Chandra Lal on Sunday, November 8, 2015

स्वधिन राष्ट्र नेपाल माथि भारतिय कुदिष्ट्रि प्रति नेपालीहरूको बिरोध न्यूयोर्कमा
Posted by Pramod Sitaula on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Posted by Milan K. Shahi on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Posted by Mahesh Yadav Adhikari on Monday, November 16, 2015

भुकम्प पीडित को लागी आएको तृपाल्, अर्बौ रुपैया सरकारले पचाए । अहिले तेल्, गैस , अन्य खधान्न फेरी सरकारले खादैछ । जनता दुखमा , नेता र सरकार कमाउनमा! कसतो चलन ?
Posted by Mahesh Yadav Adhikari on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Divided by politicians united by Chhath Pooja@ Chhath Pooja Location, Ktm
Posted by Sunil Adhikari Yadav on Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Friday, October 23, 2015

Nepal: Political Laboratory

Nepal, more than anything else, more than a place where I grew up, more than lingering therapy for some past unpleasant to downright devastating experiences as a Madhesi, has been a political laboratory for me. I have imagined new things possible. And I have been disappointed.

It would have been nice to have one third of the constituencies reserved for women. Noone else in the world is doing it. A new constitution should be a cutting edge constitution. But that was not to be. I would also have liked a multi-party democracy of state funded parties, each party getting money in direct proportion to how many votes they collect, and being barred from other sources of funding. But not even the Maoists have gone for this.

I have not been a journalist reporting on events. I have been a digital activist trying to shape events. The distance has been a boon. I would have been less effective in person on the ground. From 10,000 miles away in New York City I have devoured on information sources to suggest actions and strategies to the progressive forces. The progressives of 2005 are the unapologetic regressives of 2015, and so 2015 still feels like 2005 to me, as the cause closest to my heart, equality for Madhesis, is as unfinished as ever as of now.

But the good news is India is waking up. As late as early this year, I was lamenting the word Madhesi does not exist in Patna, Lucknow or Delhi. But now the word also exists as fas as Kerala. The Madhesis for the first time have showed up on the Indian map. Never before have an Indian Prime Minister, an Indian Home Minister, an Indian Foreign Minister taken interest in Madhesis. Heck, I never got the impression they were ever aware we even existed. But that has changed, and that is tectonic. There are as many Madhesis as Jews on the planet today. Jesus was born a Jew, Buddha a Madhesi.

There have been take away lessons for me. I might have failed to shape political events exactly to my liking in Nepal, but I have managed to formulate a political roadmap for India. That India is the largest democracy, and democracy is not India doing America’s bidding, although it is high time America considered India to be the new Britain, its number one ally in the world. Democracy is native to India: the earliest republics were during the early years of Buddhism. America’s original mission of a total spread of democracy gets kneecapped by its original sin: race. The militarism gets in the way. It is too rich and unrelatable by the vast swaths in the Global South. There are not enough semi-educated Muslims in America. India has none of those disadvantages. India is better positioned to carry the torch than is America, although it remains shy. There is a peaceful way to spread democracy. Actually, peaceful is the only legitimate way, it is the most effective way. And there India can take the lead. And there my Nepal experience has not disappointed. If democracy will enter China, it will more likely do so through Nepal than Taiwan. Tibet is China’s soft belly. Tibet is too far from the China proper, and it is too close to Nepal and India. The Tibetan plateau will forever remain vulnerable, until it opens up.

The Law Of Political Entropy (I formulated it) says, a country tends democracy granted there is sufficient flow of information. Democracy is the natural order of things, and it comes from inside the human heart, inside every human heart. But its expression requires a free flow of information, often stenched by autocratic regimes. So powers like America and India that live and die by democracy, or should live and die by democracy, should focus first and foremost on beaming down the Internet to all corners of the globe. Elon Musk is already doing it. The US government should simply become an angel investor and perhaps buy 10% of his satellite internet company for 10 billion dollars. The growth that investment might see will also help pay down some of the humongous American debt. The Chinese might appreciate.

Democracy has to come as a consciousness and a roadmap, and an organizational structure and a leadership flow. Perhaps you start in the diaspora. Once you are ready, and you have an interim constitution at the ready, and an interim Head Of State in waiting, then you seek to shut the country down completely. At least 25% of the people will need to show up in the streets. The interim government holds elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking over. The only rule for the interim and the subsequent cosntitution is it may not clash with the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

This roadmap is the best for the cause of a total spread of democracy, and Nepal has been the political laboratory where I saw it tested on the ground. In this roadmap, the smartphone is the AK-47.

This also means opening wide the doors of immigration in the rich countries. Not only do you need that to prop up your own ageing populations, remittances have been way more effective than foreign aid, and diasporas pick up lessons in democracy and organizing that State Department programs can’t teach, it is beyond their scope. The scale is humongous. Immigration can not, should not be stopped, it should be encourged and managed well. Do not fight it, tame it. Globalization is not just a free flow of information and goods, people also want to move around. That movement brings forth progress. People always seem to want to move from less desirable to more desirable conditions. They know what is more desirable. They move, they soak up, they learn, and then they propagate. They beam it all back to places where they came from. And light spreads. It’s not just democracy, it’s also prosperity. Democracy very appeal is that it makes prosperity possible.

HRW Report
Nepal's Decade Long Political Transition

Sunday, September 27, 2015

While Modi Meets A Friend Of Mine

The strongest weapon to shift geopolitical balances isn’t nukes or missiles, it’s technology

Instead of worrying about the rise of China, we need to fear its fall; and while oil prices may oscillate over the next four or five years, the fossil-fuel industry is headed the way of the dinosaur. The global balance of power will shift as a result........... Solar and wind are now advancing on exponential curves. Every two years, for example, solar installation rates are doubling, and photovoltaic-module costs are falling by about 20 percent. Even without the subsidies that governments are phasing out, present costs of solar installations will, by 2022, halve, reducing returns on investments in homes, nationwide, to less than four years.
By 2030, solar power will be able to provide 100 percent of today’s energy needs; by 2035, it will seem almost free — just as cell-phone calls are today. .......
..... Exponential technologies are deceptive because they move very slowly at first, but one percent becomes two percent, which becomes four, eight, and sixteen; you get the idea. As futurist Ray Kurzweil says,
when an exponential technology is at one percent, you are halfway to 100 percent
, and that is where solar and wind energies are now. ........ For decades, manufacturing was flooding into China from the U.S. and Europe and fueling its growth. And then a combination of rising labor and shipping costs and automation began to change the economics of China manufacturing. Now, robots are about to tip the balance further....... China is aware of the advances in robotics and plans to take the lead in replacing humans with robots. Guangdong province is constructing the world’s first “zero-labor factor,” with 1,000 robots which do the jobs of 2,000 humans. It sees this as a solution to increasing labor costs. ...... The problem for China is that its robots are no more productive than their counterparts in the West are. They all work 24×7 without complaining or joining labor unions. They cost the same and consume the same amount of energy. Given the long shipping times and high transportation costs it no longer makes sense to send raw materials across the oceans to China to have them assembled into finished goods and shipped to the West. Manufacturing can once again become a local industry.......
What is now a trickle of manufacturing returning to the West will, within five to seven years, become a flood.
...... In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humans using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material to obtain the shape desired. In digital manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on 3D models — adding materials rather than subtracting them. The “3D printers” that produce these use powered metal, droplets of plastic, and other materials — much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. 3D printers can already create physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewelry, and even clothing. But these are slow, messy, and cumbersome — much like the first generations of inkjet printers were. This will change........ Late in the next decade, we will be 3D-printing buildings and electronics. These will eventually be as fast as today’s laser printers are. And don’t be surprised if by 2030, the industrial robots go on strike, waving placards saying “stop the 3D printers: they are taking our jobs away.” .... America will reinvent itself just as does every 30-40 years; it is, after all, leading the technology boom. And as we are already witnessing, Russia and China will stir up regional unrest to distract their restive populations; oil producers such as Venezuela will go bankrupt; the Middle East will become a cauldron of instability. Countries that have invested in educating their populations, built strong consumer economies, and have democratic institutions that can deal with social change will benefit — because their people will have had their basic needs met and can figure out how to take advantage of the advances in technology.

Vivek Wadhwa, me saying you are the smartest dude in Silicon Valley...
Posted by Paramendra Kumar Bhagat on Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Intellectual Property

English: Cover of Against Intellectual Property by Stephan Kinsella (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

चोर ढोका बाट संविधान मा Intellectual Property घुसाउने प्रयास हुन सक्छ।

Intellectual Property राम्रो र चाहिने कुरा हो। तर यसको घोर दुरुपयोग हुने गरेको छ। खुद सिलिकॉन वैली (Silicon Valley) आजित छ यसबाट। सतर्क भएन भने थाहै नपाई ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनी भन्दा खतरनाक मल्टी नेशनल कंपनी देश भित्र छिर्न सक्छ।

उदहारण। धान को यो बिउ हाम्रो कंपनी को वैज्ञानिक ले पत्ता लगाएको। यी हेर कागज। भन्यो। कागज देखायो। अनि बसी बसी नेपाल का गरीब किसान सँग प्रत्येक वर्ष त्यो कंपनी ले टैक्स बटुले जस्तो पैसा बटुल्ने।

विश्व व्यापार का सन्धि हरु मा गरीब देश हरु र धनी देश हरु बीच यस बारे घम्सा घमसी पर्ने गर्छ। सबै इंटरनेट मा छ। अध्ययन गर्न गार्हो छैन। मित्र राष्ट्र का अनुभव हरु बारे संपर्क र छलफल गर्न सकिन्छ। अरु ले के गरे के गरेनन, कहाँ विवाद भयो, किन भयो, सब इंटरनेट मा हेर्न सकिन्छ।

अर्को उदाहरण। भारत ले नाइ सही गर्दिन भनेका थुप्रै यस्ता छन जहाँ सही गर्यो कि भारत मा बेचिने थुप्रै औषधि ह्वात्त महँगो भएर आम भारतीय जनता को पहुँच बाहिर जाने।

त्यसै ले पहिचान को झगड़ा गर्दा गर्दै थाहै नपाई सारा देश कुनै २१ औं शताब्दी को ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनी लाई सही गरेर नबुझाई दिने। त्यस्ता कंपनी घुस खुवाउन बड़ो सिपालु हुन्छन्। तिनको आफ्नो भन्ने सरकार हुँदैन। ती आफैमा सरकार हुन्छन्। बड़ो ताकतवर हुन्छन्। चनाखो रहनु पर्छ।

जनता को काम जनता द्वारा निर्वाचित ले पारदर्शी किसिमले गर्नु पर्ने प्रावधान यस मानेमा जरुरी छ। होइन भने पैसा पाए देश बेचने हरु को कमी छैन।

देश भित्र अनुसन्धान र मौलिक काम हरु भएर Intellectual Property हरु बटुलिँदै जानु सार्है राम्रो हो। त्यो बिना आधुनिक अर्थतंत्र को निर्माण संभव छैन।

Saturday, October 25, 2014

नेपालमा आर्थिक क्रान्ति र न्यु यर्कका नेपाली

New York City is the capital city of the world. There are talented Nepalis all over the world. But NYC does have a pretty impressive collection of Nepali talent.
Nepal is a very poor country. The most important goal for Nepal for the next 30 years is rapid economic growth. An economic revolution would be double digit growth rates year in year out for 30 years. Any Prime Minister of Nepal who does anything less over the next 30 years is a failure.
A lot of talented Nepalis have left Nepal for educational opportunities and greener pastures abroad. But among them I have felt a universal desire to give back, to contribute. That has to be tapped.
The quality of organization is important. The depth of feeling is important. The nation of Israel is a great example of how a well organized people can make outsize contributions.
Once A Nepali, Always A Nepali is a key concept. Citizenship without political rights makes zero sense. Dual citizenship with full rights would be a brain gain concept, it is the single most important thing the country can do to bring in massive FDI.
There are 30 Nepali millionaires in Moscow. By that count there should be 100 Nepali millionaires in NYC.
High tech entrepreneurship is the best way to get there.
One idea that has been floated is to incorporate a company in which a few hundred Nepalis would invest a thousand dollars each. And that LLC would invest in Nepali origin high tech startups in the early stages. I think that's a great idea.
Unless you can be a successful entrepreneur in an environment like NYC, it would be hard to make concrete contributions to Nepal's economic growth.

Sunday, August 03, 2014

Angel Investing

English: Diagram of the typical financing cycle for a startup company. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Angel investing is a beautiful thing. The person who put the first 100K into Google saw it become a billion and a half in eight years. You couldn’t win a lottery and see that kind of money. Peter Thiel put 500K into Facebook for 5% in its first Silicon Valley round and I believe second round overall and saw it become almost two billion dollars in six years, I think. Granted companies like Google and Facebook are rare.

Predictably there are fewer multi billion dollar companies than there are hundred million dollar companies. And there are far more companies that get bought in the tens of millions. A client of mine turned around and sold his app for a cool million. He had total ownership and so got all the money. That transaction was not covered by any of the tech blogs. There are far too many of those to hit the headlines.

A million might be small compared to a billion, but it is no small sum, objectively speaking. Considering a million could give 100K in annual return without getting used up, you could retire if you had a million dollars. I think it is very possible to live off of 100K a year.

Say you invested 50K in a company valued at a million for a five per cent stake, and the company had a 50 million dollar exit four years later, your 50K will have become 2500K, or two and a half million dollars. That would not be a bad return.

Post-IPO it is hard for a company to show wild growth like from inception to the IPO. Most VCs will cash out soon after an IPO for that reason. They know the wild growth is in the early stages.

Let me ask you a trick question. If you had 50K to invest, and you had the option to get 5% or 50% of a tech startup, which would you rather go for? Most people make the wrong choice and say they would like 50% of the company. Getting 5% is better. At 50% you will likely kill the hen that lays the golden egg. You will scare away round two investors. You will not leave much room for the company to be able to attract top talent. Chances are you will also have squeezed the founders of the company. Not being able to raise round two money, the company likely will die. And you will have lost your 50K. Because 50% of zero is? Zero.

A healthy tech startup is one that has plenty of equity for the founders of the company, for various rounds of investors, and for the entire team as it might build up over years.

IPOs are rare, but then it is a good thing that many other forms of exits are possible. Getting bought is a decent enough exit. Most tech startup founders dream about getting bought, and many do get bought.

It would be hard, probably impossible, to raise two million dollars for a tech startup in the New York City Nepali community. But a startup could possibly raise 100K or 200K. If the idea is great, and if the work with that initial seed fund is great, that startup could then go out into the larger market of professional investors and hope to raise two million dollars. A New York Nepali community that can not produce millionaire entrepreneur after millionaire entrepreneur is in no position to lecture the homeland Nepal on economic development issues. Practice before you preach.

Patel Brothers is likely the largest business in Jackson Heights. On an express train Jackson Heights is but 20 minutes from Times Square. As in, you are very much in the city when you are in Jackson Heights. And the place has a great selection of bars and restaurants. Jackson Heights is the only place in the city with garden apartment complexes. I think it would be possible for tech startups based out of Jackson Heights to surpass Patel Brothers - which is an old economy company - in a few swift years. Silicon Valley used to be apple orchards.

Angel investing is when you have the money - maybe 10K, maybe 20K, maybe 50K - but not the ideas, or the time, or the expertise to work on a tech startup. A lot of old economy professionals in the local Nepali community could afford to angel invest. Actually, I don’t think they can afford to not invest. You should harbor the fear of missing out.

The democracy movement is over. The Madhesi movement is over. Now for the next 20 years Nepal has no other business than rapid economic development. The local Nepali community will have to prove itself locally before it can hope for a significant involvement back home. Entrepreneurship is it, and tech entrepreneurship is the crown jewel.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Silicon

Larry Ellison on stage. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The number one destination for tech startups on the planet today is San Francisco. No, it is not Silicon Valley which continues to be home to the top tech companies in the world like Google, Apple and Facebook. Why did the center of gravity shift? Because the engineers wanted the city lifestyle. Most engineers who work for companies like Google in Silicon Valley tend to live in San Francisco.

Guess which city really has the city lifestyle? New York.

Boston used to be number two after Silicon Valley. Not any more. New York City has wrested that number two spot. Although Boston continues to be strong. Austin and Seattle are also strong spots.

But the Silicon Valley ecosystem is to be envied. One generation of successful entrepreneurs invest their money and wisdom into the next generation of entrepreneurs. That cycle goes on. You have to have several generations of successful companies to end up with the ecosystem that Silicon Valley has.

London and Berlin are also coming along. Bangalore in India has a decently rich density of developers. Chile has experimented with replicating the Silicon Valley thing. Israel has a vibrant tech ecosystem.

Geography matters less and less. India’s answer to Amazon - Flipkart - just raised a billion dollars. They are not in the Valley, or even in the US.

In New York City the primary tech action is in the Flatiron District. There is also a pocket in Dumbo. But Long Island City also has potential, I think. When Cornell establishes its tech campus on Roosevelt Island (New York City’s own “Stanford”) LIC will be a major attraction. Rent is substantially cheaper just because you crossed the river.

Culture is supreme. Silicon Valley’s strongest point might be that failure is celebrated there. Risk taking is probably the top quality in an entrepreneur. Failing is an essential part of the process. If you did not fail, that means you did not try, you did not take the plunge.

The big venture capitalists in the Valley raise their big money in New York City because this is where the pension funds and the like are.

FourSquare, one of the most celebrated tech startup stories to come out of NYC, has an office in San Francisco because they can’t afford not to hire some of the talented developers there who don’t want to live anywhere else. On the other hand, by now Google has a major presence in New York City. They just so happen to own the largest building in the city. It is because Google makes its money from ads. And guess where Madison Avenue is! But it is beyond that. Google has a major engineering presence in the city, as does Facebook, as does Twitter.

Silicon Valley is an attitude, it is a culture. It is about moonshots, as Larry Page might put it.

I routinely go to numerous tech events in the city. If someone makes the mistake of showing up in a suit, he immediately gets labeled a “suit.” I think there is something to be said of casual clothing, but you can not capture the essence of Silicon Valley in jeans or in a hoodie. Larry Ellison, probably the most colorful character to emerge in the Valley, has been wearing suits forever, that is his way of giving the finger to those who wear the casual stuff like they were uniform. You wear what you are comfortable wearing. That could be jeans and a turtleneck, the Steve Jobs way, or a suit as worn by his best friend Larry Ellison.

Software is eating the world, Marc Andreessen, the father of the Netscape browser that launched the web era, famously said in a Wall Street Journal article. There is so much still left to do that I expect the feast to go on for decades and longer. That is my way of saying one Silicon Valley is not enough, if it ever was. My answer to the famous question if Silicon Valley can be replicated is, yes it can be replicated. New York City is as good a place as any to build a tech startup.

Angel investing is a major aspect of a successful tech ecosystem. You seek some basic funding from friends and family. You need a basic prototype to be able to take a stab from the professional angel investors. And then there is crowdfunding. I see that as a majorly positive trend.

I think doing well as an entrepreneur in the New York City environment is a necessary precondition to being able to contribute to Nepal’s economic revolution. Brain drain is a pre-Internet, pre-globalization term. Today the work is so much more interlinked that you can be many places and contribute many places. There are global solutions to many local problems in Nepal.