One-quarter of the U.S. publicly traded, venture capital-backed companies started in the past 15 years were founded by immigrant entrepreneurs, according to American Made: The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Professionals on U.S. Competitiveness, a 2006 national survey commissioned by the National Venture Capital Assn.
The current market capitalization of these firms exceeds $500 billion, and they employ more than 220,000 people in the U.S. and 400,000 internationally. Immigrants have had the greatest impact in the fields of IT, life sciences, and particularly in the high-tech manufacturing sector, where 40% of publicly traded, venture-backed firms operating in the U.S. today were founded by immigrants.
This week, Smart Answers profiles two immigrant entrepreneurs.
Sai Gundavelli set out for the U.S. in 1986 from his native Hyderabad, India, with a small budget and a large dose of the immigrant dream. Although he was a college graduate, he bused tables and washed dishes until he won a scholarship and eventually earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Oklahoma.
In 1991 he moved to the Bay Area with one goal: landing a job at Internet networking firm Cisco Systems Inc. After he worked at Cisco for five years, he cashed in his stock options to fund a series of successful entrepreneurial ventures, the latest being San Jose (Calif.)-based Solix Technologies, which he founded and where he currently serves as chief executive officer.
Gundavelli spoke recently to Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow:
Asian Indian entrepreneurs have proven extraordinarily successful in the U.S. technology sector. Why is that?
Indian immigrants typically come from middle-class families, and they tend to be college graduates, many with particular expertise in science, engineering, or technology. They come to the United States to get graduate degrees and they are under a lot of pressure to see if they can take care of their parents and families back home.
The wealth in India is still controlled by a small percentage of the people in the country, so even if their parents are educated people, they may work in low-paying, civil service jobs.
There is no way it is possible to break the entrenched social system and the cultural barriers over there. When an immigrant comes here and sees that so many opportunities exist, he becomes quite ambitious.
You originally worked in engineering at Cisco Systems. When did you get the entrepreneurial bug?
Back in the old days, when I first came here, I just had a few dollars in my pocket. I worked in restaurants like a lot of immigrants, and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I was naïve, but I saw quickly that this is a great country and a place where I could really do something.
Once I got to Cisco and saw the energy and the opportunities there, I thought, wow! I saw that the Internet would eventually go to every country, and I knew exciting things could really happen. Pretty soon I knew I wanted to be involved in it as an entrepreneur.
How did you start your first
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