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Book
on Net slaves and techies
A
book on the ‘history’ of the life and times during the dotcom
boom and bust can teach a lot. Talking about a book on the
techie community in the late nineties, MOHAN BABU says
that what we learn during one boom-and-bust cycle is probably
going to help us withstand the vagaries of economic cycles
better
Every
once in a while, a book on technologists and trends, written
as a human interest story chronicling the ups-and-downs comes
along. A copy of Net Slaves. True Tales of Working the Web
(by Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin), that I picked up at the
library was one such book. Although the title claims it has
“true tales of working the Web,” the actual stories in the
book are still broader, encompassing the techie community
of the late nineties. The introduction starts off by saying
that behind the industry propaganda and media hype were thousands
of individuals trying against the odds to make a decent living
while they keep everything going. Based on interviews with
workers from across the spectrum of Internet-related jobs,
the book offers anecdotes and a glimpse into the real-life
grunt-work behind the façade of bonhomie projected by media
during the late nineties.
The
authors mask the true identity of people and companies in
the stories by inventing fictitious names and characters but
assure the readers that the stories are true. The book is
packed with hard hitting punches including jibes at immigrant
Indian workers in the US: “The cubicles around him and as
far as his eyes could see were all occupied by immigrants
from Russia, Taiwan, and India. Zorn later found out that
they were all H1-B workers who had been brought over and sponsored
by BDS. To Zorn’s ears, the arrangement sounded a lot like
indentured servitude. They were paid less than market rate
for their services and couldn’t do a thing about it for the
three years it took to gain residency.” Anecdotes like these
are sure to resonate with many Indian techies who happened
to be in the US during the heady nineties, especially those
of us who were stuck in the grind in the hopes of acquiring
the coveted greencard. Not all Indians got into the green-card-mill,
and instead chose to make the big bucks as independent consultants.
Of course, they also experienced the flip-side when the slowdown
came hurtling.
Some
readers might be wondering what a book on the ‘history’ of
the life and times during the dotcom boom and bust is going
to teach us. A lot, if you ask me. During a span of a few
more decades that most of the techies who started their career
in the nineties are going to be working, such ups and downs,
some driven by technology and others by economic factors are
going to become a way of life. What we learn during one boom-and-bust
cycle is probably going to help us withstand the vagaries
of economic cycles better. Even if we cannot predict the exact
trends, we can at least be prepared for events by observing
the directing in which the winds of change are blowing, how
people in one boom benefited and others lost out. Of course,
such a takeaway is going to be highly subjective, depending
on the stage of one’s career and lessons an individual is
going to glean.
Even
among the genre of Indian techies in the US, we had a huge
disparity ranging from the likes of Sabeer Bhatia, who truly
personified the American dream to the thousands of “regular”
H1-B
techies who happened to capitalise on the opportunities and
moved to the US. As we march along the 21st century, the winds
of change are blowing yet again. This time, the jobs are being
outsourced to India and the next generation of techies are
getting to work on cutting technologies, being right at home,
without the need to migrate West.
New
books will be written on these trends. Of course, chapters
on global outsourcing trends are already being added to management
books. On a lighter note: One of these days I’m probably going
to sit down to write a book like that chronicles my nearly-decade-long
whirlwind career in the dynamic field of information technology.
Until then, I will probably continue to enjoy reading books
like these.
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