After reading this article, All I can say is Indian education is very much identical. Some kids here are pushed even more than this Chinese kid; a kid sister of my friend goes to private tuition so that she could pass the entrance test of another private tuition which takes in less students and trains them to write and pass the entrance exam of a reputed college in India (so in simple words, she is going through two levels of tuitions to get into another tuition which she might go 4-5 years later).

Every other week I read in newspaper that a school or college kid killed himself/herself because they failed or got lesser marks than their peers. The most recent I read was a girl killed herself because she got 4 marks lesser than the topper of her class. It is scary and it is only getting worse day by day.

I have actually thought a lot about the reason “Why Parents are pushing their kids to the wall”, it is certainly not job uncertainty (there are plenty of outsourced jobs here and you can see almost anyone who is slightly not retarded getting one). The only answer I got was “Most of the parents in third-world countries lack good Identities” because they are in some jobs which are not very happy or proud of and the only way for them to escape from their ‘past or present’ is to change their future which they think is in the hands of their kids and not theirs. They constantly hear of stories of kids who studied well, got a job in some company and bought his parents house (which if he/she is lucky enough to hold on to the job might own it in next 20 years). As I have seen most of the pushy parents are highly incompetent who actually believe that their life is over, they can’t change it because they missed opportunities when they were young. A real person would go achieve what he wants at any age irrespective of anything else but pushy parents are not that because they are betting on their kids and that is much easier.

The other part of the problem is housewives (I am not sexist); this is a group which actually doesn’t have an identity. If you have ever been near one, most of their sentences start with “My son/daughter is…” most of these sentences end with an achievement of their kids which are incidentally better than other housewives kids. Now the housewives who were humiliated in the conversation go home force their kids to do well in whatever they do. It is certainly not limited to studies; it can be anything jumping a fence, throwing a ball or anything else. At the end of the day, their kid has to be better than other kids. It is kind of like playing a MMORPG where they want their avatar to be better than others and they want their avatars to level up faster so that they can fight bigger battles. So the problem is certainly not the education system, it is actually the society (housewives and people who are not happy with their jobs). So my solution would be think about the kids later, create jobs for housewives (idle minds are devil's workshop, they are the clear example of it). Keep the housewives busy and you would automatically see an improvement in kids who are back to being creative and independent like they always were.

Sorry for 600 words long rant, I am just pissed with how things are going on here right now. It actually took me an hour to write this. :)

Here's my initial concerns, reading your post and reading your posting on craigslist. You need avoid looking like a business guy with an idea (and without a clue) looking for a coder. I'd work very, very hard to avoid that because technical people will avoid you like the plague.

1. How many other team members are there? This is a website we are building, right? What are all these other people doing to earn their equity? Am I the only technical person? Be honest, how much would I -really- need your non-technical staff to build and run this site on my own?

2. Why am I not a founder? Why is this a "job"? Do I have a boss? Who is it? Why do I need one? Can I be fired?

3. If I am the only technical person, do I have full control of the technology? If I tell you that going with Ruby was an awful idea, are you going to listen? If you are, I really should be the CTO. If you aren't, then it sounds like I have a boss.

4. How much equity are we talking about? Do you think you can get a "coder" to build your website and add your features for a few % equity? Do you guys really understand how much you need a technical person? Or am I going to be viewed like an employee by a bunch of business guys with an "idea"? Are coders a commodity to you?

5. If I was taking an equity-only job, it would be for founder-level only. Anything else, in my mind, would be silly. If this is -not- the case, you need to make it extremely compelling and work very hard at avoiding all the pitfalls, because you are already fighting the most difficult uphill battle there is.

ETA: it took me awhile to write this, but even now, you'll see alot of posts by devs already "raging" against this concept as a bunch of "business guys" who appear to be severely underestimating and undervaluing technical contributes whilst simultaneously overvaluing their own contributions. If this is -not- the case, you have to work extremely hard because that's going to be the default position all technical people take.

Doing well in the Physics Olympiad is not the same as doing well in physics.

In the Physics Olympiad, you solve simple problems based on well-understood formulae. In physics, you create new knowledge. It may be telling that China has won only three physics Nobel prizes, and all three of the winners got their PhDs in the US.

I admire your dedication to working hard on physics, but I think that creative, effortful practice is the key, not relentless drill.

With all due respect, your views and analysis are only relevant to the urban experience.

"anyone who is slightly not retarded" does NOT land up a job in non-metros.

Just visit a tier 2 city like Nashik (I am not even talking about proper rural areas) and see the employment opportunities there. At such places success stories abound of sons and daughters of lower middle class workers who cracked some competitive exam or another have landed, and naturally students are inspired to work harder.

Go little deeper and in the rural areas, the socio-economic conditions there are such that kids who can attend schools and colleges consider themselves privileged. And these people do uplift the economic situation of the entire family.

The point I am trying to drive here is that the parents are generally right to emphasize the importance of education to their children. Of course, obsessive behavior as demonstrated in this article is wrong.

The inherent problem which leads to this is two fold: lack of seats and unscientific content in education.

Lack of Seats There is an utter shortage of seats in all educational centers in India. This leads to higher "cut off" grades leading to obsessive competition. The very idea that grades are the blanket deciding factor to deem a student fit to attend a certain school is very poor and it needs scrutiny urgently.

Unscientific content The Indian education, in its current form, discourages creativity, emphasizes solely on memorization capabilities (I have some friends who are now managers at Big Four IT companies who memorized essays for English exam and sums for Math exams and got super grades) and is highly politicized. It is geared to train students to be doers and not thinkers, it does not light the burning curiosity that I feel is very important to really learn anything (be it math, sciences, even history, etc)

IMHO, there is an need to modernize the educational system which should solve many a problems.

It is a mammoth task; grading system, content, creativity, the "tuition problem" to name a few obstacles. We can start out by accepting the problems.

Again, all due respect to your views. I can relate with them and probably would have completely supported them had I not had the opportunity to visit what some call the "real India" :)

The best part about _why: if this guy completely loses his mind one day, no one will notice any difference.

My firm would do and always has done pre-Series A stage, with a view to building a relationship and following-on in due course. However that is and has always been a less common strategy: most 'bulge bracket' firms (active fund of $300-600m) don't invest such small amounts.

More generally, no, I do not see any trend in rounds getting significantly smaller. I do see a trend in pre-money valuations coming down, of course, but that's entirely different.

The economics of bulge-bracket VC work when you invest say ~5% of your fund in each portfolio company, in the hope that 1/10 or 1/20 of your companies will hit it out of the park. Total fund size equilibriates when drivers for scale (partners' remuneration, principally, less relatively invariable overheads) balances with diseconomies from political inference effects which kick in when too many partners try to reach consensus and cut the cake. That's why top tier firms with a 'plain vanilla' strategy have roughly comparable fund sizes.

FUD aside, nothing I'm seeing at the moment that gives me any reason to believe that underlying model is 'broken' or failing (though of course '07 and '08 vintages will be shot). Almost all successful start-ups need a lot of money to scale beyond a certain point. Free software doesn't really change the cost of airtime, or a VP bus dev. I'm writing anonymously so I have no real axe to grind in saying that.

What is certainly happening in the industry is a shake-out. Good firms with strong reputations are raising quickly and comfortably (if quietly because it's not a time to be above the parapet), and will continue to invest without interruption. That is because there are well-priced deals to do in this environment, and innovation doesn't stop in a recession.

A number of 2nd tier firms, on the other hand, are finding fundraising very difficult. Many will not survive.

Firms that are thriving seem to be investing more slowly just at the moment. This is because there is a lot of noise in the market, and visibility is currently low. Analogy: when it's foggy you drive slower. (Economically: transaction costs rise as expectations less aligned, so liquidity declines.)

What is tough is the squeeze at the bottom end for start-ups. I get the impression (though have less direct evidence of this) that there is a bit less easy money on offer from HNWs sub $500k as many are licking wounds, etc.