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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

IITs & Entrepreneurs

Sashi Reddi
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sashi Reddi
Probably everyone knows of one or more IIT alumni who have become successful entrepreneurs. Who hasn’t heard of Vinod Khosla, the Infosys founding team, Desh Deshpande, Suhas Patil, and others like them? Well, that may lead us to conclude that the IITs are a great grooming ground for future entrepreneurs, much like Stanford. This could not be further from the truth.
I would argue that for all the terrific benefits that come with an IIT brand, there are a surprisingly small number of entrepreneurs. Think of the benefits of an IIT degree:

* Attracting talent: You can attract the best talent to join you - many of these may be people that you already knew from your hostel or class at IIT. Also, employees gain comfort from knowing that they will be working for a team of IIT guys - this continues to be a great recruiting tool.

* Attracting money: You will always get at least one meeting with any VC in the country. One reason could be that most VCs are themselves IIT guys, but everyone assumes that you will have something interesting to say because you are an IIT guy.

* Attracting customers: Every large company in India and many in the U.S. have IIT grads in their senior management. So, as you try and build a business, you know you will get a friendly hearing from your prospective customers.

So with access to the best talent, funds, and customers, you would think that becoming an entrepreneur is the easiest choice for IIT grads. Imagine trying to be an entrepreneur without access to all these benefits, it will be like trying to swim across the Amazon without a swimsuit.

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