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Comment by cmckn | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this bias in myself. I interned with several guys from India during college. I was an undergrad, they were grad students, having gotten their undergrad in India. We all went to the same university in the US. They weren't "crappy" engineers, per se, they just seemed to not actually have an undergrad degree in CS. Obviously I never saw their transcripts, but we seemed to be working from very different knowledge bases. I've since worked, as many of us have, with brilliant people from all over the world. It just gave me a weird impression of CS education in India. But, I'm sure others have similar experiences of graduates from [random school in the US or elsewhere].

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I have a similar story. I used to work with a guy from India, and he told me “If you ever meet an Indian in a position of power, they got there through nepotism and not by their own merit.”

Hearing that was pretty shocking, not so much because it’s clearly untrue, but because he held that opinion of other Indian people. He did fall under the description you gave, though. He seemed to struggle with basic Arduino and Raspberry Pi programming even though he had a degree in computer science from an Indian university.

> Hearing that was pretty shocking, not so much because it’s clearly untrue, but because he held that opinion of other Indian people.

Why would it be shocking for people to perceive nepotism in their own society?

From my personal observation, it seems to be because a lot of sheltered people who grew up in the US tend to assume that the US culture is the epitome of racism, divisiveness, and inequality that is unprecedented in the rest of the world.

So, in their minds, it is very shocking that a racial minority immigrant said something negative about their own culture. Especially since it sounds even worse than their over-exaggerated negative perception of the US.

Growing up in Boston specifically - there was quite a lot of awareness of the inequality in the US. Boston has certainly made an effort to address inequality but the old racial divides between communities were quite visible and active racism was still all around me growing up.

In terms of nepotism in particular - we had the Kennedy's, honestly not the worst political dynasty in America but a pretty clear example of name trumping qualifications. I've since emigrated, but I think I was probably disabused of any glorification of the land of opportunity and american exceptionalism by the time I finished middle school.

OP was saying that sheltered Americans think America is racist, but other countries aren't/have fixed it.

Are you providing anecdotal evidence to support him or were you trying to disprove?

Nope actually - I just fully misread his comment and thought he was saying that Americans don't think America is racist.

Sorry about that!

I wasn't saying that racism or divisiveness aren't present in the US. I am absolutely with you on that, both of those things are present in the US to one degree or another, depending on where you live in.

I was simply saying that a significant number of people in the US get so myopically focused on those issues locally, they don't realize that there is a whole world out there, where those same issues are massively more rampant and ubiquitous. And when they suddenly discover that through a first-hand or a second-hand experience, it is understandable they would be shocked.

There's another assumption going on too, which may explain another component of the shock. People educated in the USA and UK tend to assume that both education and work are based on meritocracy. So when a minority from another country points out this isn't the case, and perhaps even not the case anywhere by offering examples, it can be shocking to people who have spent their entire educational and career trajectory in 'the system' which presupposes meritocracy.

I've realized this as well. It's probably an "overcorrection" of the perceived average (racially biased) image of a people (which guess what, ends up being prejudiced as well).

The irony in this is that it's yet another manifestation of the American Exceptionalism myth, merely applied with the opposite sign.

There's other stuff like that, too. For example, many Americans - especially progressive left politically, but plenty on the right as well - appear to believe that single payer is the norm in the developed world, and US is unique in deviating from that recipe for universal healthcare, even when discussing other options. When you tell them that one can opt to go with fully private insurance in Germany, or that Switzerland runs on something like ACA (much better done, obviously - but the same basic principle), it just doesn't compute.

Or gun control: some lefties literally refuse to believe that civilians can own an AR-15 in Germany, or a silencer in UK, or carry a handgun concealed in Czechia, without much trouble.

I mean... They have serious misunderstanding how Europe works and how the "almighty" US can come in 17th place in freedom according to pretty much every single rating.

PS: US doesn't have universal healthcare, but universal healthcare doesn't imply that government must provide the services.

Yes, I know. I meant the ongoing discussions about how it should look like when we do get it. A lot of M4A agitprop is built on that notion that it would be uniquely bad in comparison to other countries for US to go for anything other than single payer.

I get why this is, propaganda aside - the only developed country that borders US is Canada, so their health system is the one that Americans are most familiar with, and the one that's most often used as a prop in political debates here. And Canada is single payer...

But even that doesn't fully explain it. For example, all proponents of M4A in US want to implement it on the federal level. Canadian healthcare system was created bottom-up - started in one province due to popular demand, gradually adopted by others as it became obvious that the benefits vastly exceed any downsides, and eventually the feds stepped into the coordinating role, but provinces still retain the final say as they can always opt out of that federal system. So, why can't US do the same? For that matter, why shouldn't the states be able to decide for themselves whether they prefer the Canadian model, the German one, or the Swiss one - and then we can see which one works better here? I never got coherent answers to any of those questions.

I think it's the absoluteness of his statement. He basically said there are no Indians who got their role through merit.

That seems extreme.

That's just a guy making excuses for why he isn't in a position of power himself.

I posted a comment a while back about this subject and the funny part was I got flamed by a bunch of US based technical workers, while the Indian techies pretty much agreed with me. Anyways the TLDR was I have a buddy Karthick and he is one of the best developers I know. So I asked him one day about why there was such low quality in India and he explained to me it was misaligned incentives due to the fact that, the fastest path to management is via a tech degree. So India is churning out a bunch of want to be MBA's with tech degrees that are just doing their time in tech to get to management. He said it was a hold over from the cast system and that you are held in more esteem in India when you manage more people.

I remember that comment. I’ve quoted that story a number of times.

Thank you, it is good to hear. You know you put words out there and you don't really know if it contributes any value to anyone or not. I just try to relay my life lessons.

I've had similar conversations. These guys were pretty open about the fact that they crammed for exams and didn't take undergrad very seriously. People that are in tech for the money is common everywhere, but there is definitely something unique about the Indian experience.

Unusually high number of openly abusive schools and parents.

90% of my class cheated in some form on regular exams until 10th grade. This was known by the management and teachers often hide it. They also increased marks of students by changing their answers lol. Discouraging environment for actual students.

Why?

Because education is a business. Metrics such as 90 percentile scored so and so drives admission rates.

why cheat?

Because lack of good parenting, teachers and dysfunctional infra. Most teachers outside of few top schools are "failures" (not literally) in private schools where they are spending their time trying to crack exams for government jobs or getting another degree. They don't care or aren't paid enough.

Parents won't help their kids or take much interest in what they like. They will be pretty thorough when investigating report cards and standardized bullshit metrics that indian schools make (outside of board) but shallow when empathising with their kids.

Tuition is a widely common practice in india which is similar to daycare in practice, I guess. It gives off an effect of your kid working... Whenever someone gets a bad grade, the first thing to do is increase their tuition time. My previous schools had same teachers taking tuition at home and an after school program. You will get questions and stuff that will come in exam by going there. It was public knowledge too. Most schools are shady. I can't remember one where I didn't see some bs going on like messing with paperwork for tax fraud (openly), messing with report cards, exams, board requirements, etc.

Big chunk of parents are not educated or live in poverty. Their kids will come to school and disrupt it for others but what can you do about it?

Separate them and put them into low cost classrooms? Yeah, that happens. Though it usually starts from 8th grade onwards. Until then, everyone is in the same classroom.

I think the biggest problem is we start investing in kids at a later age than we should. All their junior years, no one sets a good bar for them. They won't suddenly change as drastically as some people hope.

That's in line with what I perceive to be the waxing and waning of various degrees in the US. The farther the incentives drift away from selecting for people with sustainable interest and aptitude, more generally maladapted people in the field for the next five to ten years.

I think it's often a self limiting thing because word gets around that there isn't enough brass rings for everyone.

The problem is formal scholarly training and employment demands are 4-8 years dislocated from each other.

Universities do their best to keep a bead on the market (at least, the good ones do), but without medical school-style coordination it's almost impossible not to under- or over-shoot substantially in terms of graduate supply.

> He said it was a hold over from the cast system

I was with you until the "cast (sic) system".

> you are held in more esteem in India when you manage more people.

You can replace "India" with literally any country in the world. Managers and bosses always are and always have been held in more esteem than leaf node workers, in every society past and present. It's got nothing to do with the caste system.

Personal anecdote: I caught up with an American friend from school after about 15 years. He worked in some kind of product/project management role. When I told him I was an engineer in the Bay Area he said "Oh, you're just a programmer?" (OK so he wasn't a great friend, and that was the last time I spoke to him...)

> You can replace "India" with literally any country in the world. Managers and bosses always are and always have been held in more esteem than leaf node workers

This is true to a much greater or lesser degree depending on country, though. Here in the US you can be a really senior leaf node software engineer with fancy titles like "Staff" or "Senior Staff" or "Distinguished Fellow" and command tremendous respect and compensation.

That doesn't exist in some other countries. I was talking with an Italian friend once who works at a bank over there as a programmer, and seniority was exactly the same as how many people you manage. It was a contradiction in terms as far as he was concerned to be a senior software engineer if you weren't at least managing a team. The first question he asked when I was talking about my job was "How many people do you manage?", and when I responded zero, he immediately thought I was low level (I was not). Everyone aspires to be a manager over there.

My anecdote isn't exactly the opposite of yours, because in mine it's programmers themselves that are assigning status based on how many people you manage, whereas in your anecdote it's someone in an outgroup.

That's only true for a small subset of technology companies.

Outside the tech world it's barely true, and even within the tech world, the vast majority of companies still require you to enter management the moment you've been promoted a couple of times.

Sure it exists outside the tech world. It's the meaning of the word "profession." A senior doctor or senior lawyer is respected, despite being a leaf-node.

"Doctor" is always respected, senior or not, in every society going back to the stone age. It's the nature of the profession. And doctors have authority over people in the workplace - nurses and technicians primarily - even if they don't fire or give out raises.

"Senior lawyer" isn't a thing AFAIK. Law firm partners or senior partners have management roles, or at least, influence, in their firms. Otherwise you're an associate, or in private practice, working for the government, or as corporate counsel (where again, you might manage teams of people). A random lawyer with a small private practice isn't going to command a ton of respect in society generally, even if they do very well financially.

"Senior lawyers" exist—they become judges :)

Err...ok, but again, a judge commands respect because that's a position of authority. They can order people or organizations to do things, take away their property, freedom or even their life. They can literally write the law in some cases.

"Staff" and "Senior staff" and such are only recognized by ingroups. And often you need to be a staff level engineer to even begin managing people in tech.

In most industries that aren't tech, compensation and prestige are directly proportional to how many people you manage. Only in tech can individual senior engineers have impact that justifies the high pay without managing people.

Only in tech is this the case - but I don't think that only in tech this necessarily needs to be the case. High impact employees can exist in a wide range of roles, but recent cultural trends have been to push toward commoditization employment so that someone with a different approach is assumed to be a malus rather than fairly evaluated - there are KPIs and if your work style isn't optimized for them you'll flounder in corporate america.

Not sure why you're being downvoted; this is true in my experience as well.

Hell, I've been (a software developer) in SV for 16 years now and I hadn't heard of the "Staff" title until a few years ago.

Consultants, lawyers, physicians, engineers, architects, designers, board members... lots of occupations with high status and/or pay without managing people. The 'how many people' you manage metric is just a heuristic, and maybe believed by people stuck in the middle of business hierarchies.

Agree on 'Staff' and 'Senior staff'... military terms that never caught on generally. Not sure why they have started being adopted by some companies... I guess in larger companies people want their hierarchy and pay scales and whatnot.

I'll go by them in order:

> Consultants

A term so generic as to be almost meaningless. It can apply to an Agile coach, an Ivy League fresh grad billed at $1200/hr by McKinsey et al, or a programmer with an LLC and some marketing skills. These all vary widely in prestige.

> lawyers

Ditto. No one is impressed by a poor ambulance chaser or public defender. Judges, senior partners at big law firms, senior corporate counsel, DAs and attorneys general - those are lawyers people generally respect. And they all have authority over people and laws.

> engineers

Depends on where they work and what they do. Engineer at FAANG or a hotshot startup - that's been glamorized by media and entertainment but that's a relatively recent phenomenon. Engineer at a mid-sized auto parts or chemical company - usually associated with pocket protectors and slide rules, but basically just solid pros that take home a solid paycheck.

> physicians

They don't always hire or fire people but they certainly give orders. To patients, nurses, technicians. Physicians have always been respected, in every society across time.

> architects

Same deal as engineers. Plus on significant projects (like a skyscraper, apartment complex, government building etc) there's probably a team of architects that have one or more managers. Someone with an architect's license working for the city planning office in a non-leadership role? Not especially prestigious.

> designers

Are we talking about fashion designers? They don't manage people? Like literally zero people? That's news to me.[1][2][3]

> board members

They can literally vote to fire the boss of bosses - the CEO. And usually they're appointed on the basis of their achievements in business, law, or the industry.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Klein

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Lauren

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Karan

>> Consultants

> A term so generic as to be almost meaningless. It can apply to an Agile coach, an Ivy League fresh grad billed at $1200/hr by McKinsey et al, or a programmer with an LLC and some marketing skills. These all vary widely in prestige.

To add to your point, it is absolutely the case that in places like McKinsey et al., several key measures of the consultants as they make their way up the ladder are directly related to how many people they manage.

Consultants - the term has been diluted. But if you say that you're a consultant, people's imagination takes over. There's a reason why so many people are consultants. It's because generally speaking it's a term that projects high value merit.

Layers - people respect lawyers?

Engineers - we generally have very low respectability, among laypeople.

While your points on broader power structures are entirely correct, I can understand why their friend put it that way. There's a natural tendency to attribute the state of your country to its past. The caste system was just the noticeable local manifestation of how societies have tended to structure power the world over.

> I was with you until the "cast (sic) system"

You will have to take this as second hand information as I am not familiar with the relics of the cast system. But as he relayed it to me. When you go on a date with a girl that would be considered to be in a higher social status than yourself, the first thing the father will ask is how many people do you manage. Being a manager seems to provide some mobility in the relics of the system that is left. This is how it was relayed to me.

It's the "caste" system, not the "cast" system. Your friend does seem to have a pretty conservative circle of movement. He's probably talking about arranged marriages, not "dates".

(Am Indian, have gone on plenty of dates without ever meeting anyone's father.)

I think he was suggesting that the word you were looking for was "caste"

maybe the explanation is that management level is a replacement for the caste system to measure social status. not much different from western cultures. social status used to be the size of your land and how many people lived on it, now it's the size of your company or your team. the difference is that it is less universal but differs depending on the industry you work in.

I don’t think that this is due to the caste system. I have seen it first hand - used to work in a restaurant flipping burgers with the other guys and as soon as somebody was promoted to shift manager - his demeanor towards other employees would change drastically .

That's also the case to a large extent in the UK, which makes me wonder whether it's a hold-over from the Empire rather than the caste system? I thought castes were more about who you're born as than what you end up doing?

It has nothing to do with caste system. It is that younger people are not supposed to say elders are wrong or oppose them, even if they are clearly wrong. I don't know about other countries but this kind of culture is root of many problems in India.

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