​It’s Ghar Wapsi for the Indian talents in Silicon Valley. Thanks to the startups

Is the map changing? Bay Area has shifted to Bengaluru.

Ruling political party at the Centre had made a war cry of ‘Ghar Wapsi’ that invited a lot of criticism in the recent past. But, the message, though not targeted have had a far reaching effect.

The top Indian talents from iconic American tech giants are shifting their base to Indian startups.

As per a news report in The Economic Times, from Google to Flipkart, from Disney and Facebook to Zomato, from Symantec to Snapdeal, and more, the shift is prominent.

Vivek Wadhwa, entrepreneur-turned-academic and sharp Silicon Valley watcher, told the ET, "India is the new land of opportunity for these Indians who had left home."

Or as Tanmay Saksena, a Stanford graduate who quit his job as a vice-president at Disney's Palo Alto, California, offices to join Zomato, said: "India is smelling like the Silicon Valley."

Saksena and many others are being wooed by at least half-adozen Indian startups valued anywhere between $1 billion and $15 billion. All salaries look handsome and Silicon Valley-competitive in dollar terms, and most assignments involve complex technology solutions for the mobile platform.

What's more, startups such as Zomato, whose restaurant discovery app is now present in 22 countries, are articulating their ambitions on a global scale. For Silicon Valley's top talent, nothing attracts more than a mission to dominate the world. "The idea is always world domination, if you speak anything less than that, you are not ambitious enough.

When I was with Disney, it was the same thing. If I work with a company, I don't want small goals, I want to rule the world, and I sensed it here at Zomato," said Saksena.
Even salaries remain the same!

Earlier this year in March, two of Google's engineering VPs - Piyush Ranjan and Punit Soni - relocated from the Bay Area to work with India's largest ecommerce company Flipkart. Both are being paid Valley salaries too - $5-6 million annual packages.

"This mark is unbelievable. It's so intense and fastmoving," said Soni. "Coming from Bay Area, I never thought I'd do this, but it's just a whole new level of intensity here. I never thought I'd say that," he said.

Soni moved back from the Bay Area to join Flipkart and wants to attract more global talent to his team. "I have no personal reasons to be here.

I'm coming here because this is the most interesting thing that I found at this point in my career to do," said Soni, who has spent nearly a decade at Google's headquarters in Mountain View.
Gaurav Gupta, who spent over a decade in the Valley working with Cisco and Symantec apart from several startups in the Bay Area, joined ecommerce company Snapdeal on Wednesday.

"Most of us always have an eye on the motherland; this time it's fascinating to see India emerge as a producer of technology, not just a consumer," said Gupta.

"History is witness to the savviest, smartest and most entrepreneurial people usually going off to crazy places at regular intervals. This is relatively reasonable," said Soni of Flipkart.

Namita Gupta, a mother of two who headed Facebook's Global Games Partner Engineering in the Bay Area until last year, joined Zomato as chief product officer.