South Asia Investor Review

In yet another blow to Silicon Valley's "fake it till you make it" mantra, a federal jury has convicted former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani on all 12 counts of fraud. Balwani was born in 1965 in Pakistan to a Sindhi Hindu family.  He attended Aitchison College, an elite prep school in Lahore that is also the alma mater of former Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan. His family emigrated to India in 1984 and then to the United States in 1987. He studied at the University of Texas at Austin and University of California at Berkeley. His one-time girlfriend and partner Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, was convicted on similar charges earlier this year. Both face up to 20 years in prison.  Elizabeth Holmes (L) and Sunny Balwani of Theranos "Fake it till you make it" is a well-known phrase in  Silicon Valley . It means to consciously cultivate an attitude, feeling, or perception of competence that you don't currently have by prete...

Intel has recently fired its Indian-American chief engineer Venkata Murthy Renduchintala, who also served as Group President of the Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG), for failure to deliver 7 nanometer semiconductor technology on schedule, according to Reuters .  The news has knocked the market value of Intel by tens of billions dollars. The American company, the biggest global chip manufacturer with in-house fabrication plants, has also decided to outsource manufacturing. This could deal a serious blow to America's global leadership in chip manufacturing which is fundamental to all other computer and communications related technologies. Intel's Global Leadership: Intel Corp. (INTC), founded in 1968 in Silicon Valley, is the world's largest and the most advanced semiconductor company, larger than the second-ranked Samsung Semiconductors, and more than triple the size of the next-largest domestic producer, Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM). What distingui...

Over two-thirds of  low caste Indian-Americans  are discriminated against by upper caste Indian-Americans in Silicon Valley, according to a report by Equality Labs, an organization of Dalits in America. Dalits also report hearing derogatory comments about Muslim job applicants at tech companies. These revelations have recently surfaced in a California state lawsuit against Silicon Valley tech giant Cisco Systems. Religious Discrimination: Both caste and religious discrimination are rampant among Indian-Americans in Silicon Valley. Back in 2009,  there was a religious discrimination lawsuit filed  against Vigai, a South Indian restaurant in Silicon Valley. In the lawsuit filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Abdul Rahuman, 44, and Nowsath Malik Shaw, 39, both of San Jose, alleged they were harassed for being Muslim by Vaigai's two owners, a manager and a top chef — a violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, according to a report in the San Jose Mer...

Dr. John Nath Kapoor, Indian-American CEO of Insys Therapeutics, has been found guilty of conspiring to recklessly and illegally boost profits from the opioid painkiller Subsys, a fentanyl spray designed to be absorbed under the tongue, according to multiple media reports. Dr. John Nath Kapoor In 2018, data showed that opioid overdoses killed an average of 128 Americans everyday.  Last year, nearly 70,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses.  Opioid abuse has become a public health crisis with devastating social, economic and health consequences in vast swathes of America.  In spite of knowing the dangers opioids posed, drug companies like Kapoor's Insys heavily promoted such drugs by paying physicians to overprescribe, resulting in enormous company profits. Kapoor has received five and a half years jail sentence.  CBS has reported that others working for him have been sentenced to serve from 12 to 33 months, in part because of the testimony of the governmen...

Silicon Valley tech giant Google has named Indian-born IIT-educated Sundar Pichai to head its search, ads, maps, Play Store, YouTube, and Android businesses as part of a major reorganization announced by the company. Current Google CEOs Larry Page and Sergei Brin have kicked themselves upstairs to lead Alphabet, a new holding company which will include Google as well as affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing, according to  media reports . FOBs and ABCDs: Pichai and other Indian-born individuals in  Silicon Valley  are often referred to as "FOBs" (Fresh Off the Boat) by American-born Indians. FOBs return the "affection" by calling American-born Indians "ABCDs" (American Born Confused Desis). For those unfamiliar with the Indian vernacular, Pichai's first name Sundar means beautiful. All joking aside, it's a matter of great pride and joy to Indians and  other immigrants  for one of the...

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, has named Satya Nardella, an Indian-American company veteran of 20 years, as its new CEO to replace its long-time leader and Bill Gates' pal Steve Ballmer. It's clearly a matter of great pride for not only his fellow Indian-Americans in the United States but also in India, Nadella's country of birth. I offer my sincere congratulations and best wishes to Mr. Nadella and his fellow Indians who are celebrating it as their own success. The question on everyone's mind now is whether he has what it takes to bring back the Wintel-era glory to Microsoft. Wintel Era: Wintel (Windows+Intel) represented the most successful period for Microsoft and its partner Intel when the two companies together made history with the personal computer revolution. Working for Intel as an engineer in 1980s and 1990s, I had a chance to work with both Microsoft and Intel executives to help bring about the PC revolution. Both companies offe...

Two prominent Indian-Americans, along with a Sri Lanka born billionaire, have been charged in what U.S. prosecutors say is the biggest insider-trading case in a generation. The scandal is now reverberating in South Asia, particularly the island nation of Sri Lanka. It is estimated that billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of hedge fund Galleon Group under arrest in New York on charges of insider trading, has invested more than $150 million in Sri Lankan shares. Even rumors of his trades can send the market up or down. Born in Sri Lanka, he was educated at the prestigious Wharton business school in Pennsylvania and went to set up a hedge fund for boutique investment bank Needham. The hedge fund was spun off with Mr Rajaratnam at its head in 1997. Galleon was well known for its extensive research reports, according to the New York Times, and for having many senior technology executives as its investors. In 2007, there was a minor scandal involving accusations of insider trading agains...