Blunt Nilkeni
Yao! Read this:
Is your job at risk? If it’s the type of work that can be done over a wire, then probably yes, says Nandan M. Nilekani, the chief executive of Infosys Technologies.
Q. Are you worried about the outcry over outsourcing in America?
A. What’s happening is pretty fundamental. If you go back to the 1830’s, India and China were 50 percent of the world’s G.D.P., and then they missed the entire revolution of industry. So if you take a long view of this game, it’s just part of the process.
Q. Does it feel odd to find yourself lecturing Americans on the joys of capitalism?
A. You guys told us for so many years to cut out this socialist rubbish and go to free markets. We came to free markets and now you’re telling us, “Stop, don’t come.”
I had an International Finance course in College, where we read about the Gold Standard that existed before all the currency innovations came into being. And guess what? Much of the world’s wealth - in form of Gold - was stacked away in India. Until, the British merchants discovered spices. They took control of India’s spice trade, and funneled the Gold (GDP) away from India, presumably treating India as a low-cost supplier, while the margins disappeared into Britain.
What Nilkeni says, is that he can now take the margins as well, not just be the low-cost supplier!
