On my trip to India this week, I spent a day in Pune with my 84 year old Grandmother. She retold me a story I’ve heard before about my father Girish Shah. My grandfather Popatlal Hemani (our last name was changed to Shah by my Grandfather as was commonly done by refugees from the countryside then) was a tailor in Mumbai having fled Gujrat during WW2. He was deaf and largely poor. They lived in the then outskirts of Mumbai, in an area called Kandivali. Their home was a single room with a kitchen where all six of them lived.
My grandmother proudly said that my father was the bright and ambitious one. He scored at the top of his class and when it came time to go to college he got into IIT Mumbai (Powai). Ironically, life isn’t always about skill. My father was actually #2 in his high school. At the time entrance into IIT was not by a national exam, but rather offered to the #1 student in each high school. In his case the #1 student decided not to go. To this day I don’t know who that person was, but he literally changed the course of my father’s life and mine. Every time I see kids running in the streets of Mumbai, I realize that for one person’s decision that could have been me.
IIT was the first of two significant opportunities that changed my father’s life. My father studied hard and then got a second rare opportunity. UC Berkeley offered him not just admission but a scholarship to come to the US. The story of his immigration is iconic for his era. He took a steamship from India through the Suez Canal with one suitcase and $50 dollars.
I don’t know who in the US thought of allowing foreigners these opportunities in the 1960s but my father and I have them to thank. I also believe this created a bi-directional obligation. One to give back to the US economy (which he did with his early work on building the Point-of-sale credit card payment systems and I am continuing through the jobs created in the US by the two companies I have co-founded) and one to eventually give others in India the right to come to the US and continue this obviously ROI positive process for our economy and for humanity.
As you have read here we recently decided to move our engineering back to the US for largely cost reasons (ironic isn’t it). While this will create even more jobs in the US, a few of our key guys from India will be needed to functionally make this work. So we are bringing them over.
One of these guys is Dhiraj Kumar.
As a CEO, there are many times you have to make tough decisions which are not pleasant but occasionally you get to do something that feels great. Being able to offer Dhiraj the opportunity to come the US was one of those times.
Dhiraj grew up in a small town in Bihar. His father, a school teacher, died with he was 5. His mother, also a teacher, brought him and his brother up by herself in their hometown of Rampur. Dhiraj was smart and ambitious. He was the first person from his village to goto IIT. He spent much of his savings buying his brother a truck so he could remove sand from near the river and sell it as building material in the middle of town (vs carrying it by hand).
He joined Riya as a QA person, but he was not content to be only that. He aspires to learn to be a developer. Recently, we sent 5 people to Java training 6 months ago and he was the only one who learned it well enough to transition to programming. Today, he doesn’t just find the bugs he now is able to fix them himself most of the time.
Dhiraj impressed the heck out of both of us. His dedication and attention to detail is amazing. He once drove to our IT guy’s house in Bangalore (who was not being super responsive), brought his laptop and made him fix something on the spot. Dhiraj is willing to call anyone in the middle of the night (including me and Azhar) to fix a bug if it is live on the site and critical.
As Azhar and I were making the list of people who should come to the US, we knew we needed Dhiraj. We knew he was someone we wanted by our side. He had earned it as much as anyone and we felt good to be able to give him the opportunity.
I remember the look on his face when we told him about the opportunity to come to the US. He looked like he was going to cry tears of happiness. He later told us that if he comes, he will be the first one from his village to every go to the US.
I had a hard a week last week, but Dhiraj Kumar was the highlight of my week. Dhiraj Kumar thank you for everything you’ve done for us and welcome to California.
27 - Leadership team, 26 - India grows up, 25 - Million mice, 24 - Land Invasion, 23 - Nuclear Power Plant,
22 - Fast iteration ,
21 - Like.com prognosis ,
20 -Launch Video and More ,
19 -PR Coverage of Like ,
18 - Like.com Launches ,
17 -Pre launch ,
16 ,
15 ,
14 , 13 , 12 , 11 , 10 , 9 , 8 , 7 , 6 , 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 , 1 .
