I was reading an article about a teenager called Shubham Banerjee who became the youngest entrepreneur to receive VC funding for creating a low-cost Braille printer. Overall a very inspiring article, but disheartening at the same time.
This young genius is based in Silicon Valley, and when asked if he could have created what he did had he been based in India, the thirteen year old replied, “In Silicon Valley everyone is willing to help you. There are an immense number of opportunities. There are so many smart people here. I know that there are terrifically smart people in India as well but the startup ecosystem thrives on community support here. People don’t want to pull you down here. They want to help you achieve your goal. I could not have done in India what I did here.”
I got choked when I read this. It’s so disturbing to know that an Indian born teenage genius has such an outlook towards India, and what sucks even more is that he is not wrong. I have experienced this myself way too many times. I couldn’t help but ponder over how good we Indians are at pulling people down. We are so good at doing or saying things to demotivate each other. We are so good at feeling jealous of a successful person. We are so good at shunning people’s ideas and making them feel like dumb losers. We are so good at finding faults. But we suck at helping most people, in any possible way, unless of course if we have a personal motive. Even if someone tries to help, he or she is seen as interfering by some, threatening by many and stupid by most. If someone wants to help you build something and expects a monetary compensation in return, they are said to be greedy, selfish or proud. And almost always, the one who is being helped is the one to libel those who provided help in the first place.
It’s high time we change this. We need to instill trust, faith and camaraderie if we are to become anything like Silicon Valley (in a good way). We need to start believing more in others and we need to look beyond personal gain. We need to create a community where people want to help each other, collaborate and share rather than one where everyone wants the biggest slice for oneself. We need to start appreciating the ones trying to help and not feel ashamed in asking for help. We need to stop being Greedy-as-Fuck and we need to do it now.
You can follow me at @iRhymeth