Matt's Writing

I worked the last week of September in Hyderabad (HITEC City) and Bangalore (Silicon Valley of India). Both areas have very interesting cultures with the intersection of IT. Living in India for 11 days, working with people, and then traveling and really talking and interacting with people, what I found was a lot different from what I’ve read or seen about India’s high tech economy, like in  Tom Friedman’s visit to India or the TV show Outsourced . After working from India for a week, the stereotypes covered in the American TV show Outsourced don’t adequately capture the complexity that is Indian culture. First off, the show's premise that the American boss keeps embarrassing himself because his lack of knowledge of Indian culture and customs isn't really a big deal when you're over there. People seeing that it's your first time in India are very forgiving if you don't fully understand the customs, know all the Indian holidays, and aren't an expert o...

You hear about traffic in India, and you can watch videos of it. But until you step into an auto rickshaw at rush hour in Hyderabad, you haven’t experienced traffic. My 50 minute commute to go 3 miles was like a roller coaster. My life was in this driver’s hands who spoke virtually no English, who didn’t know where my hotel was and had to keep stopping and asking people for directions, and then speeding off honking what seemed like 100 times during the journey. My first days in India were filled with sensory overload. So many people, vehicles, animals, sights, smells, and sounds overwhelmed me. The sheer number of people and noises everywhere was a bit of an adjustment, even to an urban American. Travel is very inefficient in Hyderabad and Bangalore. Not many people ride bicycles, but most are on motor bikes and motorcycles. Next most common are auto-rickshaws. Then you see private cars and cabs with small liter engines. Then you see American-sized cars and taxis. Occasionally, yo...