Sridhar Vembu, the co-founder of Zoho Corporation, expressed his concerns concerning an increasing trend among Indian American children from engineering and technological technology moving to high finances. In a tweet on Tuesday, Vembu thought about his personal experience and warned the consequences of an economy focused on finances.
“Intelligent Indian-American children, whose parents are working in engineering or technology, travel to high finances,” he noted, comparing it to a long-standing trend in the United States where brilliant spirits gravitate to Wall Street rather than in innovation-oriented fields.
Vembu recalled a 1994 incident when he obtained his doctorate at Princeton University. “A former Silicon Valley engineer, who moved to Wall Street work, tried to persuade me to join his quantitative analysis and negotiation team. Instead, I took a less paid job as a engineer at Qualcomm,” he said, adding that he had never found “earning money”.
According to Vembu, this talented transition from engineering to finance is a disturbing sign. “Recently, I noticed that the intelligent and well-educated Indians climb for finance. It is not good,” he said. He highlighted the importance of channeling intellectual capacities towards the resolution of the challenges of the real world.
“We need to apply our talents to solve hard engineering and technology problems, hard and rural hard-rural infrastructure problems, hard health problems, etc.”, he urged.
VEMBU warned that an economy too dependent on finance could lead to societal instability. “Earning money with money is easy, but a finance-oriented economy would destroy society,” he warned. “It is an ancient wisdom, and we have to pay attention.”
