A lot of Australia is still run with 60s mentality (white Australia policy)…..” the world has caught up with australia..but still many australians go about with their 60s ” white australia ” policies. Generally a Phillipino would stand very little chance of getting job in many Australian workplaces of today.Yet you seem to extremely pleased with their ..passion..for work. why?…Rebekah you are smug and glib.

( Im not an India supporter. Lot of stuff wrong with India . But India does have lowest costs in many things and that keeps me optimistic for change )

Great to get to know about your career, company and your blog. ‘Very’ informative with actual numbers. Hats off to you, Ms.

In this write up you stated the following ‘facts’:
“The Sydney team spent a lot of time writing specs for the team in India. It’s impossible for a technical spec to cover every decision that the implementer has to make. For every major definition in the spec there were a hundred micro decisions left to the Indian developer. We’d never met them; they didn’t speak good English, or understand the business problem we were trying to solve. So, they often came up with wrong decisions.”
“Now that we’re growing, we’ve decided to launch our own team in Manila. I went over there last week to scope out the scene and investigate different approaches. I learned about Manila’s thriving startup scene and was shown two of the largest startup incubators, packed with enthusiastic entrepreneurs and engineers building their own products. I was surprised to hear how many startup competitions, hackathons and meet-ups there are.”

Then, here is your ‘conclusion’:
“It (Manila) felt a very different culture from India, where developers seem to work more for pay than for passion.”

I am sick to my stomach, Ms.

Your writing is absolutely brilliant, I should give you that. But, your information synthesizing absolutely stinks. By now I am pretty sure you would have guessed what I am getting at, which is simple:
You have not visited India. You did not meet with any of the developers in India. But, you found the nerve to paint a country of more than a billion people as: “…culture from India, where developers seem to work more for pay than for passion.”

For your information, I am proud to say that I am Indian. Always will be even though I carry an US passport (my adoped motherland) now. I earned one engineering UG degree in India, one engineering PG degree in US, and another business PG degree in US also. Needless to say, unlike you, I have firsthand experience on both sides of a technology company coin, namely, the technology and the business sides.

Never never never underestimate how difficult it is for a business person to explain the business purpose of a company whether the listener is a VC, techie or a sales rep. If you are finding it difficult to explain your business, admit it, since it is evolving, you do not know all the details yourself, how can you expect a bunch of programmers listening to you over phone, going over your half baked specs and reading your emails to ‘know’ what you want?!

Looks like there are VCs willing to open their wallets listening to someone with just an ‘idea’ and nothing more. Good for you. Rest assured that there are very many others who have already built not only prototypes but also working applications with a bit of a revenue stream which could be called ‘real’ companies. These are engineers; with working ideas. You identify yourself as an ex-band manager. Even though management and people skills are important in a technology company manager, that alone is not going to be enough to get work done from an engineering group. Rather than saying that you filled your shortcomings in technology by hiring an experienced technology manager (Alex North), you found fault with a whole country; and, I am so very sad to point out, its culture.

In another article “How being a female tech founder is different” you wonder if you being a woman handicaps you. To some extent it might. But, when it comes to dealing with techies, whether or not you know technology would be a much bigger influence compared to your gender. It is the actual technology people, the engineers, who are going to be more gender, color, ethnicity, etc. blind than the VCs, the money people who are predominanty White males. Let me give you an example: Satya Nadella, the Indian who became the CEO of Microsoft, ‘in my opinion’, owes his promotion to the techie founder, Bill Gates, being blind to the many factors I listed above. In my opinion, if not for Bill Gates being a techie who ‘sincerely’ values a fellow techie, Satya would have never become a CEO.

Just take one Indian company, Infosys, as an example. NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman sincerely believes that its founder CEO Nandan Nilekani is a smart man. Trust me Rebekah, a bunch of Indian techies with bundles of passion and determination alone brought it to a level of multibillion multinational corporation.

I found so much pleasure reading your very honest, right from the heart articles with actual numbers and names. As you said you are managing other people’s money now and have lots of responsibility riding on your shoulders. It is time you seriously consider hiring a Media/Public Relations manager. They would teach you how to tread lightly, and, more importantly, carefully. Your article “The Surprisingly Large Cost of Telling Small Lies” got published in The New York Times. You have arrived Rebekah, and, my sincere heartfelt Congratulations to you! Trust me, these PR people would also help you catch ‘large’ lies too, especially before they make it to publications as renowned as NY Times.

Rather than giving you all kinds of examples of India and Indians being passionate, I invite to visit us in India and see for yourself. We would be delighted to host you. I am sure you would find us to be as passionate and dedicated as Rebekah Campbell.

Subbiah