In late 80s India, foreign travel wasn’t something anyone so common. Then came on-site outsourcing by US MNCs and people were jetting off all over the world. Better than going to an average grad school in USA. Especially the system guys who worked on financial apps went all over. Papua New Guinea, Djibouti, Colombia – u name it. I, myself, spent a chilled out two years in Bordeaux and Bayonne. Till that time, i thought living in Goa was laid back

@Neale – sorry, didn’t mean to sound disrespectful.. it wasn’t my intention. I am pleasantly surprised that IBD’s in the 70′s and 80′s pursued Computer Sci for global needs, as dipanjan mentioned .. and went on to travel to Europe/US etc. Perhaps most of the older gen I have come across in my personal life in India weren’t as well off to pursue such dreams… also, was going to the US for grad studies popular at that time as well ?

Origins? The founder, Kris C., started out with a handful of programmers in the annexe of his posh Horton Place residence around the early to mid 90s. It was literally the garage based startup of yore They acquired the property behind it a couple of years later and there is still a branch there, although they’re also in about 3-4 large offices around Colombo now.

They had more work than they could handle in the early years (dotcom boom 1 was just about kicking off) and they started expanding like crazy around ’99 or so. They had a reputation for doing cool projects; not your average accounting system jobbie, so they attracted some good people. Not that I consider myself particularly good but I did uh.. interview with them when I graduated yonks ago. I turned the offer down though for various reasons – not the least being that I thought their rate of expansion was frightening and couldn’t last. They jumped from about 50 to 1000 staff in Colombo in just about 6 years, approximately. That’s scary quick for Colombo tech, perhaps less impressive by Indian standards

By the way, I am not sure I agree with your assessment of hardcore geekery. Sure, the geeks play a part but the true genius behind Virtusa (IMNSHO, of course) is that they pursued short term projects in the US with relentless intensity. Lots of people in desiland can do tech, I think they did the marketing and resource management angles better than most though, which accounts for their success.

Another reason why FOB run systems cos are run by old FOBs is the time that it takes an FOB from grad school to green card and thence a startup. A friend who started grad school here 12 years ago only now has gotten his startup going (and naturally it’s in systems). It is simply not possible for an FOB to launch any company here in her 20s (as you have very admirably done) even with all the drive in the world. And by the time they ind their mojo FOBs have been doing systems so long that it’s the thing they know.

India’s first indigenous computer(ISIJU=ISI+JU)) was developed in 1966. Not just IITs, other engineering colleges have been offering computer science and engineering programs since early-mid 80s. Those graduates are well in their 40s now. Why did desis enroll when there was not much domestic demand? Well, there was a global demand. Some wanted to be professors or work in reserach labs (AT&T, TJ Watson) and went to grad schools in Europe and US. Some of them were true geeks and did not care too much about market demand. Some foresaw the market growth.

More importantly, in early days of the industry, a degree and academic background in computer science were not always needed. A lot of IBD scientists, engineers and mathematicians with diverse backgrounds were attracted to computer science in 80s and early 90s and most of them are still in the industry as executives/managers/researchers/engineers. Some of them are in their 50s now. If you google for the biography of the founders of the first two companies in the original post, you will see that Ashraf Dahod was born in Bombay and moved to Andover in 1973 at the beginning of his career. So he is in his 50s. Jit Saxena was born in Bina in 1945. Do the math. A couple of my engineer uncles came to US as graduate students in 70s. They did not switch to CS, but a lot of their friends and peers did when the industry took off in 80s and 90s around the same time when manufacturing industries and the oil patch in south started to stagnate and decline.

I personally know IBDs in their 30s and 40s in each of the companies I mentioned in the previous comment. More 30s than 40s, but that’s primarily because I am only 33.

Haha, yeah, “proof by authority” and “proof by intimidation”. Here’s a really pathetic example – One guy (junior) was indignant that he had to do ∫xdx as part of a problem. “Is this a math class or something?” and this was in an aerodynamics course! I’ve seen struggling students often show righteous indignation at the “system”.

yes, but I haven’t started work yet.

cool!.

Good question there, randomizer.

Why were there IBD computer experts then ?

Because America needed them. Please take some time to study the history of TCS, Patni, etc.

Kurma, my experience with the high-end students was the same. However, there seemed to be rapid decay after that. To be fair, I was a TA for CS, which is sometimes considered engineering and sometimes not. My worst experience was in an introductory level math for CS course. I almost tore my hair out getting people to understand what actually proving something means, as opposed to asserting it forcefully. It seemed to me that most of the class did not lack smarts, just the motivation to think rigorously.

As to your last question, yes, but I haven’t started work yet.

@ #33, #34 : Here is why I am extremely surprised: There was no market for computer sci experts in the 1980′s in India. Why were there IBD computer experts then ? Indian companies were hardly relying on computers in that age … Maybe a handful at best. if there was no demand, why was there a supply ?

I would expect expertise in this domain to be in some small pockets in a few engg colleges like IITs .. but definitely not mainstream. If there are tons of IBDs in their 40′s in msft,orcl, etc right now, I would assume that a good number of them made a career shift to IT somewhere in the early 90′s. The IT industry in India at least is dominated by 20-something year-olds. If the Bay Area has IBDs in their 40′s, yes I’m definitely surprised.