Outsourcing guru Vivek Wadhwa plugs Chile
By Bala Shah

Indian origin Vivek Wadhwa is one of the great success stories of American tech and academia. Vivek did his first degree in computing from Australia followed by an MBA for New York.  A fellow at Harvard, Vivek is often perceived by the American techies as a mouth piece of the booming Indian outsourcing industry. Now Vivek is plugging Chile.

Vivek Wadhwa has had an extraordinarily successful tech career.  As CTO and EVP of Seer Technologies, he took the startup to a $120 million publicly traded company. He also started Relativity Technologies.  Forbes magazine listed him as a ‘Leader of Tomorrow’. Fortune magazine listed his company as one of the 25 ‘coolest’ companies. He has been profile/written about by every major media in America and India.

Not surprisingly, Vivek Wadhwa has strong Indian connections.  He is a key player in TiE which was founded by Indians, as well as with a number of other Indian organizations based in USA. Vivek even financed a Bollywood movie to help launch his son and was quoted as saying: “Bollywood is more crooked than Hollywood”.

While many Indians in the outsourcing industry see Vivek Wadhwa as championing their cause, this is not the case.  American techies who have lost their jobs also see Vivek as a champion of the Indian tech industry. Both are wrong.

But the fact is that Vivek is a champion of America who has told numerous interviewers that he is “concerned about US competitiveness and wanted US to keep its edge”.  Vivek feels that US would keep its dominant position if it increased the number of visas for highly skilled people and ensured that qualified Indian and Chinese do not return home.

If more proof is needed that Vivek sees himself as an American first, check out his latest article in America’s No.1 technology blog Techcrunch is which he lists all the advantageous of Chile as an outsourcing hub

“
The Chilean government wants you to invest $500,000 over 5 years, but is pretty flexible about how you do this.

So what do you get for your $500,000? To start with, they’ll give you a visa. You can stay as long as you want – even permanently. You need to submit a business plan but you have a lot of latitude for what’s an acceptable business. Any type of high tech products, medical or biotech products, or green or cleantech products get the stamp of approval, as does software or even online gaming or social network software. Even if you want to set up a call center or technical support service that derives revenues from sales to foreign companies and they think you’re legit, you’ll get the visa.

But first, you want to check out the country, right? The government will give you 60% of your due diligence costs, or up to $30,000, to visit and explore Chile. And they’ll grant you another $30,000 to launch your company in Chile. If you work from one of their tech centers, the government will pay for 5 years of rent (up to $1 million) or split the costs if you want to locate elsewhere in this gorgeous country.

How about workforce incentives? Chile has you covered. The government will pay you (as an approved entrepreneur) up to $25,000 for the first year of “training costs” for any locals you hire. By the way, Chile has some excellent engineering schools so it’s not terribly difficult to pick up a good Java or C# programmer. They typically make $15,000-30,000 per year. Can’t find the local talent you want? Chile will subsidize your efforts to bring folks from Sunnyvale, Mumbai or wherever you may find them. And you can train these folks on Chile’s dime as well. And if you decide to buy some land and build your own labs or offices, they’ll give you 40% of your costs up to $2 million. How about for H-1B immigrants or other talented folks who want to move to Chile? Simple. Get a legitimate tech job and they’ll give you a visa, no questions asked. Are you starting to get my drift? (Note: If Chile took even one-quarter of all the H-1B holders current working in tech jobs in America, they would probably come close to doubling the size of their technology workforce).
“

Vivek Wadhwa has had spectacular success in the tech world and is highly regarded in American academia as well.  Ironically, even as many in the Indian outsourcing industry sees him as pro India and the American techies losing jobs accuse him of the same thing, Vivek’s first priority is America. Business is about hard logic and cold cash and not much to do with loyalty to mother country.