Satya Nadella is not a win for India but a loss

Why do we keep doing it? Why do we keep patting ourselves on the back in self-congratulations when what we are really doing is stabbing ourselves in the back?

Every time an Indian – or a person of Indian origin, who no longer has Indian citizenship and is not strictly speaking Indian anymore – gets appointed to an eminent office abroad we go ga-ga with patriotic pride. Take the recent case of Satya Nadella, the 46-year-old ex-Hyderabadi who has lived in the US since he was a post-graduate student. When he was made CEO of Microsoft – the macro giant of IT founded in 1975, headed by Bill Gates and one time billed as being the most highly valued company in the world – the Indian media and Indians in general, went over the moon with self-satisfied joy.

INDIA MAKES A POWER POINT, blazoned a six-column headline on the front page of The Times of India. Most of the other media was similarly overcome with euphoria.

Nadella’s case is not the exception but the rule. Whenever any person of Indian origin – even individuals who left the country may years ago, or perhaps weren’t even born in India – wins any kind of recognition abroad, India goes overboard about what is seen as a surrogate victory for the country.

Why do we do this? And why do we think of such success stories as victories for India, when what they really represent is a loss for the country?

Why do we tom-tom the success of Indians living abroad? Perhaps it’s a reaction to our colonial past when we were ruled by a foreign power for over 200 years. When an Indian – a person of Indian origin – succeeds in the western world we feel a sense of reclaimed self-esteem, a salve to our sense of national pride, injured by the legacy of foreign rule.

Perhaps this is not just an understandable but also an inevitable response, given our history of having been colonised and the consequent need to show ourselves and the rest of the world that we are not inferior to anyone.

But such vicarious ‘victories’ are really defeats for us. Instead of lauding the success of an Indian who has left the shores of this country to live, work and win laurels elsewhere, we should ask ourselves why such people feel it desirable, or necessary, to go abroad to find success and fulfillment  in whatever their chosen field is, from IT to academics, from medical science to politics.

What is called ‘the great Indian diaspora’ is a phenomenon that most of us take great pride in. See how many of us Indians have gone abroad, see how many of us Indians are doing so well there.

It’s a great feeling. But there’s one nagging question: wouldn’t it have been better for India if instead of having had to go to a foreign land to achieve success such people had pursued their careers here, to the benefit of our own country?

So by all means let’s raise a collective toast to Satya Nadella and his well-earned success, and wish him all the best in his assignment. But let’s also realise that Nadella, and people like him, don’t represent a victory for India; they represent a victory for their adoptive country which managed to lure them away from India by the promise of better prospects than their home country could offer.

Nadella represents a gain for Microsoft and for the US in general; for India he represents a loss.

jug.suraiya@timesgroup.com

Source:http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/entry/satya-nadella-is-not-a-win-for-india-but-a-loss?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral

Everything you need to know about Microsoft's new CEO

Microsoft drafts in Satya Nadella as its new CEO. Here's everything you need to know about him.

 

 

 

Microsoft has chosen long-time employee Satya Nadella as its new CEO, bringing to a close its five-month search for Steve Ballmer’s replacement. The engineer has worked for Microsoft since 1992, when he left Sun Microsystems. Critics consider him a “safe” choice for a company which some claim is in urgent need of a radical management change, as the PC buying slump continues to bite.
Despite dominating the PC landscape for decades, Microsoft has lost ground in recent years to rivals, such as Apple and Samsung, as the mobile revolution has taken off.
Here, we find out a bit more about the new guy in charge of Microsoft.
Full name: Satyanarayana Nadella
Age: 46
Salary: In his previous role, Microsoft reportedly paid him $669,167 as a base salary plus stock bonuses which add up to $7.6 million. And that’s just for 2013.
This will inevitably shoot up now he’s taken over the company reins, one has to presume.

Education and skills: Nadella hails from Hyderabad, India. He graduated from the University of Mangalore with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering before continuing his education in the United States.

He earned two more masters' degrees: one in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, and another in business administration from the University of Chicago.
Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems until 1992, when he joined Microsoft.

 

A Microsoft mainstay: Since joining the Redmond giant in 1992,  Nadella has moved between departments every few years.
“This journey has both kept me on my toes and constantly motivated,” he told the Deccan Chronicle, an Indian English-language newspaper.
For instance, he’s served as vice president of the Microsoft Business Division, senior vice president of research and development for the Online Services division, and president of the software giant’s $19 billion Server and Tools Business.

Cloudy credentials: Nadella’s work led him to his most recent role as executive vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise group. His official biography lists him as in charge of “building and running the company’s computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services.”
In this position, he’s been credited with shaping Microsoft’s Cloud OS strategy, the backend system for its online services.
Cloud OS helps run Microsoft services like Bing, SkyDrive, Xbox Live, Windows Server, and Visual Studio. These services, especially Office, rank among Microsoft’s strongest.
Industry reaction: Analysts seem to consider Nadella a safe pair of hands, and someone who’s unlikely to change Microsoft’s direction too much.
“He is the right person to drive safe, right down the middle of the fairway, and continue Microsoft's strengths,” Rajeev Chand, research head of a tech investment bank, told India’s Economic Times. “What we don't know is will Nadella help with the consumer revival, or with the mobile revival. Mobile is an open hole in his background.”
Choosing a man with little mobile experience to lead a company in dire need of a mobile strategy may seem inadvisable. Nadella, however, has shown an aptitude for adapting to new environments in the past by changing jobs every few years.
“Always keep learning,” he told the Deccan Chronicle. “You stop doing useful things if you don’t learn.”