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Comment by umeshunni | Hacker News Reader

Something interesting about the startup scene in India is how the center of gravity has shifted over the last 10 years from Bangalore / Hyderabad to New Delhi. Elad Gil's recent post mentions this: http://blog.eladgil.com/2020/10/unicorn-market-cap-industry-... with Bangalore having 8 unicorns vs Delhi's 11.

"While Bangalore continues to thrive, some point to bad governance locally (traffic, high rents, passive government) as one of the reasons it is not the only center. There are undoubtedly other reasons, but it is worth thinking about relative to San Francisco longer term."

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I've been to both Delhi (more accurately, Gurgaon) and Bangalore on business assignments. I don't mean to sound unfairly harsh, but it's difficult for me to imagine a city that basically feels like it's constantly trying to kill you become a center of startup activity, for the simple reason that once one becomes wealthy enough to invest in startups one would want to leave the city for a better quality of life.

The air quality and pollution problems in Delhi are like nothing I have ever experienced. When I was there (granted, it was exceptionally poor air quality even for Delhi at that time) I could not see the sun at midday due to the smog - I couldn't see more than 100 feet due to the smog. I felt like Blade Runner could have been filmed in Gurgaon - a post apocalyptic world with giant buildings but a dire lack of accessible green space. Even if there were much green space, I couldn't spend much time outside because every breath tasted like acrid metal.

I'm not saying San Francisco and Silicon Valley are some utopias either - they obviously have a slew of social ills (often debated on HN). But I have never realized how much I have taken for granted being able to breath clean air, and I really hope Delhi is able to clean up its pollution problems, but until it does I can't see it becoming a truly globally competitive startup center.

I think Elad's point wasn't that Delhi will become a global startup center, but that it became India's startup center from behind since the original leader (Bangalore) suffered from poor governance over the last 15 years.

The parallel to the US could be that, over the next 10-20 years, NYC (or some other new hub) overtakes the Bay Area / SF for similar reasons.

Based on covid mortality, it’s arguable that Silicon Valley is better governed than people give it credit for. Not only has mass death been avoided so far in the Bay Area (compared to the situation in New York metro area earlier this year), California has been battling multiple emergencies during at the same time (see the extraordinary fire season this year)

8 vs 11 is too small a sample size to say either way. It may very well be that a couple of these startups succeeded due to their business model / luck / sector / whatever which wouldn't apply to the next startup.

If it were 0 vs 11, that would mean something, but 8 vs 11 is too close.

Instead of counting unicorns, we should count the number of successful exits, such as acquisitions. Or, second best, the number of companies that reached (say) series C funding.

> ... Bangalore having 8 unicorns vs Delhi's 11.

How much of that is related to government influence (the effectiveness of pushing Bangalore & Hydrabad to be tech centers)?

I note that Bangalore's population is 8m, while Delhi is 21m. If it was 'unicorns per population' then you'd naively expect a ratio of 8:21, not 8:11.

Delhi has 4 really good engineering schools as well (IIT and IIIT-Delhi are world class, DCE/DTU and NSIT / NSUT have equally smart kids). In my experience they aren't going for big company jobs now but are more geared towards joining smaller firms or starting something of their own. Co-working space is also a big thing there. Transport isn't as bad as Bangalore. Hope the air is better and women's safety increases as well. The food is the best in India - my biased take :)

> Delhi has 4 really good engineering schools as well

IIT has an engineering faculty, but is not 100% eng. That's a common misconception in the US.

It's predominantly known for the JEE and it's engineering program. Yes there are other programs.

Holy crap - I forget sometimes how many people are in India. Compare those two numbers to LA's 4M people and you start to remember how small America is population wise. With the way that tech is going AKA Eyeballs/ads/consumerism equals money, the tech scene in India is going to be much bigger than the US in the future.

From a global viewpoint America is also massive. India and China are just outliers. There are entire nations with smaller populations than some neighborhoods in New York or Los Angeles.

LA is 12MM people (LA county).

Which is not than the population of Belgium[1]

1.https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+Belgium&oq=pop...

Out of 190+ countries, America is in 3rd place for largest in the world by population with 330MM people. [0]

And if America, overnight, produced 1 billion more people?

It would still be in 3rd place.

[0] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by...

India will likely tie China in population after the current famine in China - expecting around 200 million casualties in the next year.

Yes, but India's nominal GDP is half that of California; in fact India's GDP per-capita is lower than just about every country in ASEAN and East Asia. The entire country's GDP is similar to that of the Tokyo metropolitan area. The socio-economic indicators are actually more aligned with impoverished African nations.

These are clear indicators of state failure.

True but not sure if you considered Power Purchasing Parity of Indians. India is able to manufacture most of the stuff for itself at the moment and hence everything is cheap in India. From basic things like soda cans that cost 10x less in India than the US to the same online services that also cost 10x less.

The GDP per capita might be less in terms of the US standards but the Power Purchasing Parity makes up for it plus we can't forget that the nominal GDP is still in Top 3/Top 5 in the world ( depends on what source you look at ).

India has a negative trade balance so still need "strong" currency to buy abroad, same thing for its citizens to travel and its companies to expand internationally. The size of the economy is nothing to sneeze at, but in the same way PPP gdp is more important than nominal for the average citizen, per capita is way more important than total GDP, that's the reason anybody would pick to live in the small economies of San Marino, Luxembourg, Monaco o Curacao over India or Nigeria.

You make an interesting point. However, India and Nigeria are starkly different, just food for thought. It's almost like comparing U.S with South Africa.

> However, India and Nigeria are starkly different, just food for thought.

No, they are not. GDP nominal per capita: India: 2000, Nigeria: 2000. GDP PPP per Capita, India: 6000, Nigeria : 5000

> It's almost like comparing U.S with South Africa.

GDP PPP per capita: US: 63000, South Africa: 12000. GDP nominal per Capita, US: 63000, South Africa : 5000

There's massive income disparity in India. Nominal per capita income for the richest state is nearly 9x of the poorest state.

Not an apples to apples comparison - LA metro area has a population of 13 million.

As someone who's never been to India, when someone says "Bangalore" I think "tech hub" and when someone says "New Delhi" I think "Bollywood". Do people feel a pull toward New Delhi the way people feel a pull toward NYC here in the US?

Bollywood == Mumbai

While I can't speak for Delhi, Mumbai is closer to the "NY of India" and attracts young people in the same way

If we are going to compare cities

Mumbai == LA (Film Industries) Delhi == NY (Not much to support this but the Rude people stereotype)

Not really, the financial center of India is Mumbai. Bombay Stock Exchance is in Mumbai, as its name implies. You could say the Wall Street of India is in Mumbai.

Anyway, I'm not sure it would make sense to make these comparisons.

Nah. Mumbai has stock exchanges (BSE and NSE), banks and financial institutions, ports, the TV, music, and fashion industries. It's far more similar to NYC than New Delhi is.

Delhi is DC - capital of the country, lots of politicians and bureaucrats. Also spread out quite a bit and with lots of impressive historical and government buildings.

Mumbai is LA and NYC sort of combined - entertainment capital (Bollywood) and financial capital (main stock exchange, banks, Dalal street (equivalent of Wall Street). Also like NYC, cramped with lots of skyscrapers.

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