The Indian IT industry

To say that the Indian IT industry is a gigantic fraud of biblical proportions would be an understatement. Anyone who has worked in the Indian IT industry ("consulting" as they call it) will tell you that a mechanic with a roadside shop is probably a better car "consultant" compared to IT "consultants" in India. At least the car consultant does a decent days work.

People who have learned the art of fraud well are called "experienced". These are the kind of people who have lost their soul and self esteem after working for 5-10 years in the IT industry. 10 of the best years of their lives - gone, vanished. The kind of people who ask "what is your platform, coding language and tool ?? " even before they get to know your name.

Given the hierarchy followed in the Indian IT companies ( Jr. Analyst, Analyst, Sr.Analyst, Ass. Man, Manager, Ex-Man, VP, Partner), it is difficult to say if the fraud is a top down approach or bottom up approach. I will explain.

The partners and the VP's and the Managers... their job is only to sell the project to the client by using phrases like "adding value", "performance delivered","Market capture", "increase sales & profits" etc. etc. Once the project is sold, the next step is to "maintain the relationship". The client is stuck with you in a one or two years contract, you have got him by the balls. Now you milk him on a weekly basis ( IT companies charge their clients on a weekly basis). If IT companies only accepted payment after the product was delivered, like for example the auto industry does, they would all go bankrupt in no time. So the assistant manager and everyone above him is responsible for Sales, Marketing and Client relationship management. The negligible job of software development is left to the lowlifes ( Analysts ). So out of a hierarchy of 8 steps, the top 5 are "busy" with this.

Now lets come to the analysts, the lowlifes. They are usually underpaid and over worked - fresh out of college, clueless guys who are just learning the art of fraud. They are supposed to learn programming languages and tools. They hate their life and they hate their job, but they are "managed" in much the same way a donkey is ridden with a carrot and a stick. The carrot in this case is usually the promise of a promotion and more money, sometimes the carrot doesn't work, so they dangle a cabbage ( on-site opportunity ). (Remember, even if the donkey catches and eats the carrot, a donkey is still a donkey) . But most of all, the analyst is driven by the dream of the peaceful life he will have after he becomes a manager.

The analysts are grouped, quite arbitrarily and put on the project. Now there may be some idiots (freshers) who think that their job is to actually get some work done, but after watching their more experienced peers they soon realize they were mistaken. A team of 10 -15 analysts ( may be as high as 100 in indian IT companies) is formed in the hope that at least two or three will try to RG(Relative grading) the others to get ahead in their career, and in the process maybe everyone will work hard and some work will get done..... but there is a flaw in this thinking, it is more likely that a person who is working hard will look at someone who is putting peace and stop working, than a person who is putting peace sees a person working hard and starts working. Hence everyone tends to "the point of no work". After 6 months of successful frauding comes the time for the half yearly reviews. During these reviews people find out that no one did any work. How do u rate people if everyone gets a zero ? Then comes the debate over who likes who and the reviews soon turn into a popularity contest. Different people refer to this in different ways - "networking", "politics", "favouritism", "ass-kissing","godfather", "Sleeping with the boss"(Oh yes , you are ignorant if you think chicks wont sleep around to get ahead) - whatever you call it, they all mean the same thing.

I was very lucky to have worked under an awesome VP, an ex-IITian, as soon as I joined my job fresh out of college. On the first of many meetings, his first statement to the batch of 10-12 of us (all IITians) was - " 99% of all people in the IT industry are frauds ". I dint realize it at the time, but this was probably the most truthful and profound statement I heard in two years of work. It prepared me mentally for what lay ahead. For his sage like advice I will remain ever grateful.

Within the first couple of months, even before I finished my training I had decided that consulting wasn't for me. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a conscience or anything. I would gladly take a persons money by fraud if he is stupid enough to give it to me. It was just that I have always been, and still am, extremely self-aware. I can fraud the clients, I can fraud the managers and I can fraud my colleagues, but if there is one thing I can't do - its lie to myself. So here is what I did. I gave myself a time of 2 years, buckled down, spent the second year looking for a job, unsuccessfully (recession sir). The time 2 years was not chosen arbitrarily. One, it would look good on my resume, well rounded figure - shows loyalty and perseverance. Two, 2 years is a good enough time for you to exploit the MNC's brand name, get to know some good people, people who will be friends for life and also to get a few recos for higher studies. More than 2 years will get you labelled "Techie from India" or " IT worker", there are millions of them, and if there is one thing I have learned in life, it is to move in the opposite direction of the crowd, cause the crowd is usually retarded. Also the demand and supply of people in the IT industry is highly unfavorable for a long term career.

Then when my 2 years were up, there were signs that told me to quit my job ( One of the biggest ones was the election results and the 2000 points sensex jump that followed ). I knew the time had come for me to get up from hibernation and do something. So I put in my resignation and gave my two months notice, then I left that day and never went back to office(My 2 months notice was actually a 2 week mass bunk, after which I think they got the general idea). That was my Bye-Bye and Fuck-you to the Indian IT industry.

The thing I realized after 2 years is - the IT companies are filled with extremely nice people who are extremely smart and who are not inherently useless. I feel it is the framework and the structure of an IT company that makes it extremely unproductive - to the point of fraud. I think my IIM friends should be able to put management fundaes on this phenomenon. Everyone knows it exists, but no one acknowledges the fraud. To acknowledge it is to commit professional suicide.

If you are an IT worker and need pointers on how to pass your time at work...here are a few ideas

1) WIP - this means work in progress - which means - it aint never gonna get done
2) Try chatting and orkuting ...this gets boring after a while
3) Take frequent coffee and tea breaks. Also take fag breaks, but buy one fag at a time so that you have to go to the sutta shop at least 4-5 times a day
4) Tell your manager you will come late to office and work late. come in at 11 and leave at 5 30.
5) Jerk off ( toooo honest ? )
6) When dealing with on-site team ( The white retarded people ) ... make a list of 20 doubts as soon as you know the work assigned to you.... ask one or two doubts per conferance call (one call per week ), you should be able to waste a couple of months, they won't know what hit them.
7) When on conferance calls - ask the onsite team stupid questions like ... I cant find the plug-point to plug in my computer... can u help me find it ?
8) When they ask you how much work is completed.... draw them a pie chart (50% green and 50% red) and say -- this much !!!
9) A favourite among women is the work from home excuse. The manager cant say anything because they have "women problems".
10) Make a document in excel. The first column should have names of processes, the second column is to be filled in with random numbers and the third column should be filled in with ( random number + or - 10%). This document is called the CMMI Level 5 audit. 
11) Display your complete lack of self esteem by practicing your fake "US accent."
12) Watch the latest seasons of 24
13) If you do all the above and are still finding it difficult to timepass... put ur head on the table in front of you and go to sleep.
14) Make an internal document called "Best Practices" and put in the above 13 points. 


For all my well wishers, who are wondering what I'm doing ...Thanks for your concern, but dont worry, I have tripled my networth through the stock market ( the couple of months at home proved to be more productive than 2 years of actual work). I am working in a alternative energy startup in Chennai...for lack of a better word I will call it "Alternative energy consultancy". Its an awesome job and I'm loving it, although the pay is not as good as my last job, I sleep better at night.


PS : Im sorry guys for such a long break from my blog :) I had other things on my mind.

Indian Politics 101 - Who will win election 2009 ?

Indian government and politics is based on the UK system of government. The central government has more powers, more money than the state governments. The Central Government is the governing authority of a federal union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India. 

The Parliament of India consists of two houses: the directly-elected 545-member Lok Sabha , the lower house, and the 250-member indirectly-elected and appointed Rajya Sabha, the upper house. The Rajya Sabha members  are elected for a term of 6 years by the state legislatures with each state having some quota. There are rolling elections every 2 years, one-third of the seats are up for grabs. To become a member of the Rajya Sabha, a person must be a citizen of India, not less than 30 years of age. He/she should be mentally sound and should not be bankrupt. He/she should also state an affidavit that there are no criminal procedures against him/her. ( That rules me out on two counts....Guess which two ?? ) . 

The Finance minister of India presents the annual union budget in the Parliament. The budget has to be passed by the Lok Sabha before it can come into effect on April 1, the start of India's fiscal year.  India's union budget for 2005–06, had an estimated outlay of Rs.5,14,344 crores ($118 billion). Earnings from taxes amount to Rs. 2,73,466 crore ($63b). India's fiscal deficit amounts to 4.5% or 1,39,231 crore ($32b). The fiscal deficit is expected to be 3.8% of GDP, by March 2007.

The Parliament seats are divided as shown. Red is Rajya Sabha and Blue is Lok Sabha. UP has 110 ( 80 + 30 ). 

Its clear from this graph that 12 states ( with more than 30 LS+RS seats )  hold all the power when it comes to getting a majority. AP, Bihar, Gujrat, Karnataka, MP, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, UP, West Bengal. I suggest you stand for election from one of these states if you want to become Prime Minister of India some day :) . Unfortunately this logic has resulted in the formation of many local state level political  parties from these states that play a big role in the formation of government.The heads of all these dumb parties want to be PM some day.  Now the two major political parties Congress and BJP have been consistently loosing power to these parties. The so called national parties have not been able to get a majority for a long long time. India has had only coalition governments for a long time thanks to the multi party system. 

There are about 250 people in the Indian Parliament with criminal cases pending  ranging from murder, rape, extortion, kidnapping, booth capturing, Tax evasion etc. At least 50 of these are hard core criminals. Even Rahul Gandhi have a case of tax evasion pending. 

So we come back to the main question.....who will win election 2009 ?

Lets say the Congress, BJP and Third Front(+other parties) divide the votes equally, they all get one third. Then what will happen is the Third Front will split and parties will join either BJP or Congress. This is where these criminals come in. They need to be with the ruling coalition if they want to stay out of jail.  Here comes the tricky part .... Now comes the question ....who can get more support, the BJP or Congress. Finally it will come down to money. Seats will be bought and sold like commodity. Now you may ask, which party has more money power on its side ? 

The answer is obvious if you saw the recent vibrant Gujrat summit. Gujrat attracted investment of over $ 250 billion. To put that into context ...that's 5 times the tax collected by central government. Both Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal endorsed Modi as their PM candidate in the presence of Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata and many prominent Industrialists. These Industrialists have to get a friendly and favorable government at any cost,  to consolidate their hold on the Indian Consumer in these times of financial crisis. They cant afford to lose. Secondly, they would never openly support a party unless they were pretty fucking sure it will win. 

Hence BJP and its allies will come to power this election. Its inevitable. 

I dare you to find a flaw in my logic. The Think Tank has spoken ..... 

Having said all this, I would also like to make it very clear that I do not intend to exercise my vote for as long as I live. I find the entire exercise pointless. The main reason for this is that the Indian electorate has a maximum memory of 2-3 years, how else could you explain the presence of two political parties in a particular state coming to power in alternate elections and never winning two elections consecutively. Ideally, a party that has come to power and failed should never be able to come back to power in the future, but the dum people just don't learn from their mistakes, I have dedicated my life to doing exactly opposite of what the majority does.  

  

A Valentine Story

Little Melissa comes home from first grade and tells her father that they learned about the history of Valentine's Day.

"Since Valentine's Day is for a Christian saint and we're Jewish," she asks, "will God get mad at me for giving someone a valentine?" Melissa's father thinks a bit, then says "No, I don't think God would get mad. Who do you want to give a Valentine to?"

"Osama Bin Laden," she says. "Why Osama Bin Laden," her father asks in shock. "Well," she says, "I thought that if a little American Jewish girl could have enough love to give Osama a Valentine, he might start to think that maybe we're not all bad, and maybe start loving people a little bit. And if other kids saw what I did and sent Valentines to Osama, he'd love everyone a lot. And then he'd start going all over the place to tell everyone how much he loved them and how he didn't hate anyone anymore."

Her father's heart swells and he looks at his daughter with new found pride. "Melissa, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."

"I know," Melissa says, "and once that gets him out in the open, the Marines could shoot the fucker."

JOKE :)

I got this joke in a chain mail and I thought I would share it with all of you. :) 

A white man was seated next to a little black girl on the airplane when he turned to her and said, "Let's talk. I've heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just opened her coloring book, closed it slowly and said to the man, "What would you like to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the man. "Since you are black, do you think that So-called President Barack Obama is qualified for the job?" and he smiles.

 "OK", she said. 'That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass -. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?"

The man, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea."

To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss President Obama's qualifications  ..... when you don't know shit"  

The story of a hedge fund manager

Andrew Lahde was a California-based hedge fund manager who in 2007-08 earned some fame for achieving return rates in the vicinity of 1000% with his Lahde Capital, based in Santa Monica, California. He converted the asset under management from $ 2 billion to $20 billion in less than an year by correctly forecasting the sub prime crisis and shorting the affected banks.  The fund speculated on increases of U.S. subprime mortgage defaults. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Finance from Michigan State University and an MBA from the Anderson School of Business at the University of California Los Angeles.

In September 2008, at the peak of his career as a hedge fund manager, Lahde closed his fund. On October 17, he released an open good-bye letter to his investors, colleagues and press. Lahde criticized the harried life of the rich, and said that "Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt." He suggested that George Soros "start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest". 

The main reason Ladhe closed his fund was that after years of trading he had found that the rarest commodity in the world is intelligence.  

I have pasted the open letter below. 

"  Today I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say goodbye.

Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, “What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.” I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.

There are far too many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a Hollywood actor accepting an award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the endless list those deserving thanks know who they are.

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

So this is it. With all due respect, I am dropping out. Please do not expect any type of reply to emails or voicemails within normal time frames or at all. Andy Springer and his company will be handling the dissolution of the fund. And don’t worry about my employees, they were always employed by Mr. Springer’s company and only one (who has been well-rewarded) will lose his job.

I have no interest in any deals in which anyone would like me to participate. I truly do not have a strong opinion about any market right now, other than to say that things will continue to get worse for some time, probably years. I am content sitting on the sidelines and waiting. After all, sitting and waiting is how we made money from the subprime debacle. I now have time to repair my health, which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my entire life — where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management — with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not. May meritocracy be part of a new form of government, which needs to be established.

On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest proposal. First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. Since Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith passed, I would argue that there has been a dearth of worthy philosophers in this country, at least ones focused on improving government. Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt. George Soros, a man of staggering wealth, has stated that he would like to be remembered as a philosopher. My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles. This forum could be similar to the one used to create the operating system, Linux, which competes with Microsoft’s near monopoly. I believe there is an answer, but for now the system is clearly broken.

Lastly, while I still have an audience, I would like to bring attention to an alternative food and energy source. You won’t see it included in BP’s, “Feel good. We are working on sustainable solutions,” television commercials, nor is it mentioned in ADM’s similar commercials. But hemp has been used for at least 5,000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products. Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. Hemp is the male plant and it grows like a weed, hence the slang term. The original American flag was made of hemp fiber and our Constitution was printed on paper made of hemp. It was used as recently as World War II by the U.S. Government, and then promptly made illegal after the war was won. At a time when rhetoric is flying about becoming more self-sufficient in terms of energy, why is it illegal to grow this plant in this country? Ah, the female. The evil female plant — marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country. My only conclusion as to why it is illegal, is that Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other additive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers. This policy is ludicrous. It has surely contributed to our dependency on foreign energy sources. Our policies have other countries literally laughing at our stupidity, most notably Canada, as well as several European nations (both Eastern and Western). You would not know this by paying attention to U.S. media sources though, as they tend not to elaborate on who is laughing at the United States this week. Please people, let’s stop the rhetoric and start thinking about how we can truly become self-sufficient.

With that I say good-bye and good luck.

All the best,

Andrew Lahde”

Do I still need to tell you why he is my new mentor ?? Please let me know if any of you are planning to start your own hedge fund :)