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I followed an interesting string of thought as I drove back from hospital today. It’s about five generations of Indians.
I’ll call my grandparents’ Generation ZERO.
They grew up in British ruled India, and had little freedom to do things they might have wanted to. Their primary role in this thought-stream, therefore, lies as people who gave birth to…
My parents’ peers, a Generation 1.0
The folks in their 60’s and 70’s today, who grew up in an India struggling to build itself as an independent nation, bearing bravely the burden of experiments in Nehruvian socialism.
Then came us, Generation 2.0
Like Web 2.0, we were prepared for something new and exciting. Global capitalism. Of course, we didn’t know how it would explode on the Indian scene in what would soon become a post-liberalization scenario – but strangely enough, we were prepared and ready.
When Microsoft spearheaded the birth of a home computing revolution, we were in high school. Many of my generation embraced, willingly, the opportunities presented by that disruptive shift… and today quite a few executive VPs in the software behemoth are my contemporaries from India.
Contrast this ability to adapt, adopt and thrive against the attitude and behavior of the next group…
Generation 2.4
It’s represented by youth in their late teens and twenties today.
Where just 2 generations earlier such opportunities were completely absent, this population literally has the world as their oyster – yet, for some inexplicable reason, seems steeped in a lot of negativity, fatalism and a shockingly saddening willingness to believe that the worst is inevitable.
True, as youngsters we all eagerly looked out for Number One (moi). But today I see overt tinges of greed and selfishness that’s a sort of hallmark of Gen 2.4. It seems as if this young crowd that’ll be the future of our nation is steeped in a sense of entitlement, and keeps brashly grasping to get what they see as their due… for no better reason than that someone else has it.
Maybe it’s a reflection of the ultra-conservatism of their parents and grandparents, but there’s a surprising lack of enterprise in reaching out to cut their slice of the cake of rich opportunity that exists in an abundant, globally-connected universe waiting outside there.
Five years ago, medical transcription services were hot. They helped average youngsters bank big checks – for doing work that wasn’t creative, innovative or entrepreneurial. To no one’s surprise, profitability of that model dropped – but instead of adapting to change, there’s a bitterness among the downsized that I find hard to explain or understand.
Parents placed Gen 2.4′ers into colleges, counting on the juggernaut that’s the I.T. (Information Technology) industry to just continue to recruit 50,000 or 500,000 new engineers, year after year, forever – and pay them stunning starting salaries of Rs.35,000 and above.
And when it didn’t happen, these engineers are flocking instead to call centers (to help America’s consumers solve complex problems with using their household appliances) or fighting desperately for the few remaining cushy jobs that involve sitting in front of computers 8 to 12 hours every day, trouble-shooting bugs in software that’s being phased out by client’s companies (but needs support until the new version can be deployed).
Are they really so blind that they cannot see the inevitable end coming when this newer software goes live across systems?
Do they believe call centers are future-proof in a way medical transcription could never be?
Is entrepreneurial energy and a willingness to take risks in such a rich, conducive and open business environment so rare and scarce?
In the ‘Licence Raj’, the average entrepreneur couldn’t hope to get a foot in the door, which explains why Generation 1.0 (and even 2.0) breeded only a smallish elite group of ultra-successful business owners.
But in a world where teenagers are building business empires that put even the biggest of industrial giants to shame, why are Indian Gen 2.4′ers not leading that pack? Or caught somewhere in the thick of it?
Even inside India, today’s business and social environment of economic liberalization and public sector disinvestment provides opportunities for the taking!
Generation 2.0, despite having invested years and much of their youthful energy into well-defined paths, are even now exploring ways to bend these promising avenues and blend them into what they’re already doing. My own approach of using e-commerce to fund heart surgery for kids is an example.
Generation 2.4 can do this with so much more flexibility and with much wider latitude – because, literally, they have nothing to lose! (Sometimes, I wish I had been born 10 years later!)
But why aren’t they doing it?
My guess is that it’s a lack of confidence. An unwillingness to give things a go, and try out something unconventional, new, and therefore potentially dangerous.
In 1984, my peers hopped aboard the micro-computer and software carousel. No one knew how that would turn out. It was a heady ride, and has made them world-famous leaders and even celebrities.
In 1995, I embraced the world of the Internet. It provided no guarantees of success. Yet, it has become something special in my life, brought many dreams alive.
In 2010, will we see young Indians of Generation 2.4 take a risk too?
Or will that have to wait for my daughter’s Generation 3.0 to seize the bull by the horns, and tame that bucking bronco, bearing the risks that lead to massive success?
Also see: What Youth Want
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