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[IP] more on New Start-Up Breed: Born in the USA, Made in India





Begin forwarded message:

From: Udhay Shankar N <udhay@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: September 23, 2004 10:11:35 PM EDT
To: cak@xxxxxxxxxxxx, Dave Farber <farber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on New Start-Up Breed: Born in the USA, Made in India


From: "Christopher A. Kantarjiev" <cak@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: September 21, 2004 6:10:43 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] New Start-Up Breed: Born in the USA, Made in India

Dave,

I worked for such a startup for two years. It was a disaster, because we couldn't find good line managers to work in India. The few engineering staff and management in Santa Clara spent half of each day fixing the mistakes and
misdirection that the Bangalore crew had checked in every night.

Chris and I were colleagues in this particular startup. I have my own opinion on where the "mistakes and misdirection" actually originated, in this particular case, but we won't go into that.

I think that the current situation is qualitatively different, as a LOT more attention is being paid to process. This does not necessarily mean more quality, but it does mean more predictability. The problem of teams working tens of timezones and thousands of miles apart is being explicitly addressed in several companies now, including the one I currently work for. The success of this is debatable, but the point I want to make is that there is a change from the earlier situation where any "situations" were habitually addressed by throwing more and more midnight oil at them until something, or somebody, cracked.

Udhay

PS: one more minor nit, for Chris - the startup he was originally talking about was born in Bangalore, and later went to the US. :)


--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

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