Daniel Gross: uncertainty

Transcript context

…An interesting thing that I see in the Indian diaspora is, the first-generation immigrants especially, probably the ones you’re familiar with in the Bay Area — they are not very risk-taking and entrepreneurial in the sense that they’re not doing start-ups and stuff like that. But they’re very good at doing very well in big tech firms and very good at navigating a particular system. It’s the next generation — American born from Indian families — who end up being very, very entrepreneurial. Is that a good way of thinking about all children of immigrants? Or there’s something funky going on with the Indian immigrants? Mostly children of immigrants just aren’t that risk-taking? I think there’s something interesting going on with Indian immigrants. In particular, if you look at the executive leadership bench in tech, there’s massive overrepresentation of Indian immigrants or children of Indian immigrants. I don’t know if you have a view, but there’s something interesting going on there. I think that’s an interesting effect someone ought to study. Certainly, with start-up founders, which is maybe the area I most studied in, you tend to see first-generation immigrants. But these are people that come to the United States usually not out of sheer desperation to have some basic form of economic success, because they were somewhat suppressed in their origin country, but more people in search of some spiritual belonging that they believe they found in whatever technology they’re working on. They look much more like religious migrants, I think, than your typical immigrant: “I’m trying to make it.” Founders, at least, that I meet that come out to San Francisco — some of them actually are American, just immigrating from Iowa to SF. Obviously, many of them international, too. The best ones are not necessarily that worried about making a buck tomorrow. They’re technical, they found an interesting scene, and they want to belong. I think it’s actually quite different from the immigrant persona of, “We took our whole family to the US. We have two screaming, crying babies, and we’re just trying to survive.” I think those people, for very obvious reasons, are very risk-averse. I’m strongly of the view that right now is a golden age for the Indian diaspora and also India. If you look at Florence during the Renaissance, or you look at Central Europe in the early decades of the 20th century, you see remarkable, truly remarkable levels of achievement that don’t happen before, don’t happen after. It’s not some genetic thing, but somehow everything is coming together just right. I think part of talent is to realize when you hit these mother lodes, and then to figure out, “Well, we’re just going to try to do a lot here, as much as we possibly can.” Investing in potential mathematicians in Hungarian high schools in 1916 was a really good thing to do. You don’t even have to be that good at picking talent. Today, for whatever reason, I do think it’s India, possibly South Asia more broadly. I see the potential for parts of Nigeria joining that club. It’s further away, maybe still contingent. But for whatever reason, right now, something remarkable is happening. Combination of level of aspiration, internet is good enough, enough people with enough English fluency, some underlying flexibility of worldview that I think has made Indians relatively well suited, say, to be CEOs in American companies in a way we might not have expected, say, 30 years ago. I think something extraordinary is going on, and it won’t last forever, and it was not the same, say, 40 years ago. Maybe it started 20, 30 years ago, but now we’re seeing it all blossom. To me, it’s very exciting.…

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