kamikazi

Yeah, so let's repeat that - this time in a vastly different market, way crazier demographic variety, far different socio-economic & growth conditions and tech/internet revolution which has exponentially changed for good since then.

What can go wrong? At the most we are risking only a generation of Indians thinking FB as internet (just like Indonesians) who will then graduate to think Chrome icon as the browser (just like people thought of IE shortcuts on their Win95 desktops).

Let's allow the same mistakes but this time execute it better. I can get behind that.

The problem is akin to being a frog in the well.

Millions of first-time internet users will be onboarded (using shady mktg techniques - that's just how things work on the ground where it gets real dirty) onto free flavors of handpicked services.

They have no idea of real internet. Please see the very first link I posted which gives our full reply. It answers your Qn in depth.

"You must be on the Reliance network to use Internet.org. If you'd like to access these websites for free, use a SIM card from Reliance" --

What I see when I visit internet.org from my wired & wireless, non-Reliance telco.

Think of this as FB passing off 'free AOL CDs in the mail' as The Internet in India for millions of first timers who are getting sub-$100 smartphones, using poor villagers--& benevolent Wikipedia to provide covering fire.

oh well ...hello! :-) and sorry I kinda took a shortcut to the assumption that you were not an Indian.

Denzil - we have bodies and committees for every thing but no action takes place. Our CCI is a joke. There is no anti-trust. And less said about our courts & justice system the better.

Just a small eg: Satyam chief, Ramalingam Raju, picked up the phone and gave himself in to SEBI (US version of SEC) confessing to financial fraud of INR 4000 crores+ massive job losses, massive losses/harakiri in pension/taxes owed to the govt (due to inflated employee #) to the extent of he had one of the big4 auditors in his pocket who signed over falsified bank balance statements. This resulted in govt having to take over the co and auctioning it out to TechMahindra. At the time Satyam was the #3 Software services company in India by sheer revenue and employee size. Raju gave detailed proofs of each of his wrongdoings ("when he could not ride this tiger anymore") and yet it took our courts 7 years + to impose a rap-on-knuckles 7 years of imprisonment and 5 crores of fines. An amount which he could've made bamboozled off in one day of stock manipulation on the exchanges.

So my point is it's one thing to have all these fancy bodies and titles and quite another to have them act on anything.

This recent action against zero-rated apps by one of our telcos, Airtel, is a heartening move which ofcourse morphed into heat brought upon FB's internet.org which is a bigger culprit on net neutrality front.

Way to go online activism in India! (Disclosure: I'm a member of the #SaveTheInternet volunteer group)

very cool! I'll try this with my 4.5 year old - he's just about getting a hang of an internet as an 'abstract invisible something' - that like electricity is out there; that it can be turned on and off. And when it's on he's able to see pictures of lion tiger and other animals on our tablet. I might just start by replacing car gif with a lion. Lion on wheels - should be fun heh! :D

Very impressive Ankit. Really liked your hack to go cold emails. Even InMobi cold-called all the way to KPCB! So it's not unheard of. All the best on journey ahead.

Bit of a noob Qn: Is it the norm to have as much as 50 investors in your Angel round? Or are you guys an exception in that too? How do startups deal with so many people after funding? In investor updates and followups, sharing figures, revenues, execution strategy and then following up on those discussions. Is it all done kinda light-touch?

Thanks for your perspective David.

On re-reading maybe I personalised those comments a bit too much or it comes out as litany of excuses which was not what I intended. Just wanted to let Kevin know what makes the Indian/Asian mkt different since he specifically asked for it.

1) Yep, that occurred to me & I started that process before YC results. (got rejected by YC btw)

2) Talent yes. Bottom ranking in start/ease of doing biz more than overcompensates for the talent part IMO.

3) Not necessarily. Our RBI/customs/payments by design at govt policy itself is screwed - much of it I don't understand. So yeah if you are a veteran in finance/payment domain with ministries in your rolodex and money to plough in for years - maybe. High risk, decade-long timeline, but ultrahigh payoff kind of bet if one can pull it off.

4) Working visa & HackerRank. This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks. PG has said multiple times that they insist on entire team to be physically there. And I can understand why from YC's pov.

5) Agreed. I overshot on that remark.

7) Yes, read her story. Very inspiring. That's what keeps us going.

Thanks again for your response and hope you got in for the interviews? Don't see email in your profile. Can you ping on mine?

Me too. In my case YC deadline just happened to coincide my decision to startup. More than the financial backing my startup would've benefited more by being in YC ecosystem and my feet on the ground presence in signing up those early customers. Might try in next batch. Good luck!

Can't see your email anywhere. Email me?