I fully agree with few opinions expressed here that we don't encourage those who have unique ideas. In fact, the person with unique ideas is called crazy. When he tries to start working on his idea, then our strong .bureaucracy comes into play, spoiling everything. Indeed, free society like America can encourage free flow of ideas and their implementation.
Americans are entrepreneurs in spirit but Indians are slaves - they like to do MBA like this guy Divya or work for google like his friend. They simple don't have the guts and risk taking abilities in them. Marc Zuckerberg had it in him and thats why he succeeded. So what if it was not his own idea. Having an idea is one thing and implementing is another. Kudos should go to the implementor and not the owner of the idea. I may have a story in my mind. Suppose I tell this story to a filmmaker and the filmmaker goes and produces the film . So I have the right to say that the filmmaker has stolen my story?
Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by mrhound on Nov 17, 2010 12:34 AM
Indians are not slaves, the problem is our society which doesnt encourage entrepreneurs...firstly every idea doesn't become successful, then lets say you plan to get married, tough luck finding a good mate (esp for males) who is gonna marry a guy working for a startup.... then if you plan to open a business in India, then God help you, you will get old just roaming around the various gov offices. Then tell me who is gonna take the plunge and get into dark waters.
Re: Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by shewli hira on Nov 18, 2010 10:44 PM
It's true starting anything in India takes loads of energy, spirit...and it's easy to get exhausted given the Indian business scenario...
Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by Sanjiv Acharya on Nov 16, 2010 05:04 PM
Excellent point. Everybody these days has brilliant ideas but so what? If you got what it takes then do it.
Re: Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by El Nino on Nov 16, 2010 08:31 PM
Excellent point? How was it an excellent point? It was poorly written, and in bad taste! If he had read the entire interview, and then made a valid point based on it, then probably Ashish's point would just about have an outside chance of being considered even!
Re: Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by shewli hira on Nov 18, 2010 10:42 PM
If you don have an idea then what do you do? Idea giver should have a share as well with the idea implementor...
Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by El Nino on Nov 16, 2010 08:26 PM
What rubbish? He had an 'IDEA', and obviously to implement it he needed a programmer, since he wasn't one. If you haven't read the interview in its entirety, you shouldn't make half-arsed comments. He has every reason to fight this out in court, and make it clear to everyone else that he was the man behind Harvard Connections (Facebook).
Risk taking abilities? Again, if you've read the entire transcript, you will notice that Divya Narendra has moved on, managed to make a decent amount of money from Mark, and has started off a new venture - SumZero.
Ashish, if ever a situation comes up where you're idea is stolen, and you're at loss, then and only then will you understand what Divya Narendra has gone through.
Finally, stop with patronizing Indians already!! We're just as capable as the "Americans" in terms of both entrepreneurial ability, and spirit.
Re: Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by shewli hira on Nov 18, 2010 10:50 PM
It is easy to draw a tree by looking at a tree...so it may not be easy to start a business but to steal somebody's idea and then becoming successful and unwilling to acknowledge the other person's contribution is unfair...but then again it is not one person who thought of it, I am sure there could be other people as well and who were not vocal with their ideas...Ideas are not one person's possession...there could be many who were pondering upon it at the same time but were not vocal or passionate about it...
Re: Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by Sanjiv Acharya on Nov 17, 2010 03:36 AM
Mark Zuckenburg took a stolen idea and $1800 to create Facebook a company valued at $6 billions. Divya took $65 millions and came up with SumZero which no one has even heard of. That is the difference.
Re: Re: Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by El Nino on Nov 17, 2010 01:08 PM
And you're saying you heard of Facebook, when Mark was writing the code? I'd like to see how you react when you have an awesome idea, go to a guy who can further it, but instead he stabs you in the back, and is hailed as a genius? Would you take it with a pinch of salt, and move on, or would you be keen on protecting your idea, and fighting for it, and also conceptualize another business idea while you are fighting for your idea? There's a lot of intricacies involved, but just because people haven't heard of SumZero yet doesn't mean they won't hear of it in the future.
Do you suppose facebook is a sustainable social networking website? What is the guarantee that there won't be another website, which is much better, and people start using that instead? There's no monopoly on the internet, mister! Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome etc are fighting it for market share as far as the browsers segment is concerned! Napster was hailed as the next best thing, but you know what happened...
Re: Re: Re: That;s the difference between Americans and Indians
by rohit chauhan on Nov 18, 2010 03:47 AM
If u havent heard o sumzero, I bet u havent heard of another hedgefund site.
That was a matured interview without offending anyone. It may be his idea or may not be his, why would they give money if not for his idea or his participation at least.
Re: Facebook was his idea!
by Raj Reddy on Nov 18, 2010 12:47 AM
JGN, I think you live under the rock some where. Read news sometime. Mark Zuckerberg never had the facebook idea. It originated out of what this Divya and other guys did.
