Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rekhi: 1980s manager refused promotion because whites wouldn't follow Indians
“When I talked to my boss about, you know, moving into management, he was pretty clear. He said, you know, we, I'm not, we're not sure that you would be good in, you know, that you're very good at what you're doing. We're paying you good salary, but we're not s…”
Assertion Partly supported
Rekhi: Excelan hired HP exec as CEO for Wall Street IPO optics
“Board is telling me that, yeah, we are going to have to put a CEO here who looked like a wall street. Yeah. Acceptable CEO. Yeah. This is like a star from the central casting. So we hired, you know, this guy from HP as it was general manager of a division and …”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2076
Rekhi predicts India will economically overtake China within 50 years
“I see, 50 years from now, we are, we will definitely overtake China. We will definitely overtake China.”
Opinion
Rekhi: China is very brittle with high chances of internal explosion
“China has done really well, but China is very brittle. Lot of pressures have built in China. Chances of a explosion happening within China are fairly high.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2035
Rekhi predicts China could overtake the US economically by 2035
“China will overtake America by 2035. Yeah. If they turn, transhold, you know, may or may not happen, but if they turn, transhold, you know, China will be better than U.S.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rekhi predicts India will be the biggest global winner in AI
“I think India will be the biggest winner in AI. India will be the biggest winner. For the same reasons, India was a very big winner in IT.”
Assertion Supported
Rekhi: India created FVCI venture framework following TiE advocacy
“So they passed a law to allow the FVCA foreign venture capital asset class, right? Which made it very easy for people to invest in India.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rekhi: 1970s US tech stereotyped Indians as unfit for management
“By mid seventies, 75, 76, Both universities and industry were starting to see, you know, that Indians are pretty good in what they do. But again, a new Brand start to emerge. You know, these guys from India, you know, they have this mathematical gene, you know…”
Insight
Rekhi: Delaware incorporation is a massive structural advantage for Indian founders
“So, so I describe your Delaware Interperation as darts drift to Indian founders. You know, if your customers are in the U.S., if your investors are in the U.S., you're much better off interpreting Delaware.”
Opinion
Rekhi: India lacks domestic risk appetite to fund necessary entrepreneurs
“There's not enough risk appetite in India to fund all the entrepreneurs that we need to have.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2056
Rekhi predicts India will match US wealth within 25 to 30 years
“India is going to be now as rich as America. Eventually, we got our economics right. We have our politics right. So it's a matter of time. Whether it's 25 more years, 30 more years, you know, India is growing much faster than the US.”
Insight
Rekhi: Founders obsessing over early-stage valuation are being foolish
“If you are hung up on the valuation in the bid need and you're spending six months a year to raise money, you're being foolish. You're being left behind. You could double, triple value if you took the money and started to build this stuff.”
Assertion Contradicted
Rekhi: India mobile phones grew from 1M to 83M in one year
“That day, on April first, 2001, There were one million mobile phones in India, and there were seventeen million landlines. One year later, there were eighty-three million mobile phones in India, and seventeen million landlines, and we have never looked bad.”
Insight
Rekhi: Founder CEOs must be the financial center, unlike corporate managers
“When you are a general manager at a large company of a division, you're not a financial center. Somebody else is doing the financial plan. In the startup, you know, the founder CEO has to be a financial center.”
Insight
Rekhi: Funding 10M Indian founders requires $1T, exceeding domestic savings capacity
“If I have ten million entrepreneurs and each gets a 100,000 dollars worth of capital, that's one trillion dollars. That's one trillion dollars. Yeah, it's not going to come from the savings of Indians.”
Assertion Contradicted
Rekhi: 95% of foreign capital into India flowed via Mauritius for decades
“The 95% of money to India was coming through Mauritius. It had been happening for 2020, almost 30 years.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2029
Rekhi predicts India will overtake Germany as third-largest economy in 2-3 years
“We'll be number three, yeah, when we overtake Germany, maybe in two, three years from now, right?”
Assertion Partly supported
Rekhi: US produces 75,000 engineers annually versus India's 750,000
“U.S. Produces 75,000 engineers a year. India produces close to three-quarters of a million engineers a year.”
Assertion Partly supported
Rekhi: First TiE workshop drew 500 sign-ups versus 100 expected
“We thought maybe a hundred people will sign up. 500 people signed up.”
Assertion Supported
Rekhi: Bay Partners made 100x on Excelan; Novell merger yielded 200x
“And John, Made over a hundred times his money. Only because he left early. Yeah. Because the other people who stayed here, they made maybe 200 times the money. Yeah. One who stayed through the Nobel merger and all that.”
Assertion Contradicted
Rekhi: IITs were legally barred from accepting private donations in 1990s
“The IITs were not set up to accept any donation or any money from anybody other than the government of India. That was the law.”
Assertion Contradicted
Rekhi: Act of Parliament was needed for IIT to accept $50,000 donation
“And so it took a change in act of parliament for them to accept the 50,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Rekhi: AI startup SciSpace has exceeded $15M in revenue and is profitable
“No, they're in excess of 15 already. 15 already. Fifteen million dollars a revenue. Yeah, and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very profitable.”
Kanwal Rekhi