 Why are so many CEOs of top American companies Indian? What makes them different than other Asians? And are they even considered Asian? Welcome, everybody, to the hot pop boys. David and Andrew here. The current CEO of Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Adobe, Chanel, MasterCart, Pepsi, and OnlyFans are all Indian-born men and women. So we did a bunch of research, and we're here to tell you eight reasons why American companies like to hire Indians as CEOs. Yeah, I think a lot of Asian Americans wonder whether you're obviously East Asian or even Indian American yourself. You're probably like, man, I'll probably never get to be the CEO of the company I work at, but my boss or my boss's boss was born in India. What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? They got it. Guys, I think we got to talk about it. We have a lot of friends who have wondered this question and we talked about it with them. And listen, guys, we just got to get into it. All right, here's eight reasons why if you guys are excited about this video, please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the hot pop boys. And let's get into it, David. Who else breaking down culture like this, guys? Come on, man. Give us a like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. Please. All right, reason number one, guys, Indians are raised on average to be more assertive and better managers due to the nature of growing up in India. Yeah. I mean, I think that versus a East Asian upbringing, whether we're talking about in East Asia, obviously growing up in America in an East Asian household is also different. That's a whole another thing. But basically, India, Andrew, is this place that's hyper politicized. A lot of people argue, a lot of people debate over very serious things, maybe like every day. So the people who emerge from that are able to handle like internal Western company politics is probably like a walk in the park compared to what they got to deal with in India. Dude, I mean, if you think about India is a gigantic country, like pretty much the same size as China. And it has so many different types of people and so many different religions. So just growing up there, you're already managing so many things. And also, I was told that in India, the infrastructure is maybe a little bit less efficient. So obviously you're dealing with that growing up. So basically, yeah, you're good. It's a crazy training ground. You get tons of reps in. Yeah, no, for sure. It's almost like from the rows that concrete grow. I mean, from the concrete of rows grew. You know, like if you are the type to rise from a very difficult environment, you're probably super strong. Yeah. And I think this goes without saying, but obviously a lot of East Asian cultures are focused around like saving face and maintaining harmony and not arguing and not debating. And if this person's higher than me, I'm not going to like test them. But you know what? In American companies to rise the ranks, you got to test people and you got to speak up and you got to be assertive. And obviously there's a lot of Asian CEOs in Asia, but we're talking to American companies. That's what they want. I wonder if India is like argumentative or discourse-based culture was that way before the British takeover? Or it was probably almost always that way, guys. And to be honest, East Asia, if you made me say, I know there's differences between East Asian country. It's kind of always been quiet and more deferent to hierarchy due to Confucianism. That's what I think. Yeah. I mean, just a quick example. Taiwan has a parliamentary democracy kind of system. And I feel like Taiwanese Americans tend to be more politicized and political than other types of Asians. Obviously, every East Asian like geography place kind of has its own culture, but for the most part, all less willing to engage in discourse in argumentation than Indians. All right. Point number two, this is a big reason. For many decades, India's top talent, their top students would leave India for education and jobs and never come back. So you're getting basically the cream of the crop of India. And India has a ton of people, tons of students, tons of engineers. And when they go to America, for example, and they get hired, they're not coming back to India to start companies necessarily. Yeah. I think it is different for East Asian countries at two varying levels. I know a lot of people, obviously Japanese, they almost always go back to Japan, literally. Like that's just like one of the things that you know. Like I had a bunch of Japanese neighbors that moved back to Japan to go work for, you know, whatever multinational they got over there. But I think you've started to see even Chinese go back now. Like for the long time, China was in the same situation as India where if you came over, you're not going back because you're like, you're imaging and you're just mad at everything and how messed up it is. But actually nowadays in 2022, a lot of people have tried to like, started to work like five, 10 years and then move back to China. So obviously India, they don't necessarily have that same situation where there's a ton of like, gigantic multinational global Indian companies that they can go back and be the CEO of. Once they come over here, they're like pretty locked in and committed to the American companies. Yeah. I do think now I heard it is changing. There are bigger Indian companies that are growing in India that, you know, are able to retain some talent or bring some talent back from America over there. But largely, yes. I mean, the top talent want to leave and that's how it has been for the past few decades. Point number three, Indians as a general archetype or stereotype mix more with other ethnicities more. Whereas East Asians, Andrew, you have this word that you just learned. What is it? Homophily. East Asians have very high homophily meaning that their desire to hang out with themselves is very, very strong. Obviously anecdotally, I think a lot of people would say, oh, Asians are really clicky. Why are Asians always with Asian Asians, you know? But Indians, for a number of reasons, they feel like that they can relate to multiple ethnic groups. Now, here's a little example. We know how many East Asian ethnic enclaves there are in America, whether it's Chinatowns, J-Towns or K-Towns, right? But Indians, they have a lot of numbers in America too, millions of Indians, but there's not as many Indian enclaves in America at least that are well known. So I'm saying like- There's not that many India towns that I'm aware of. Yeah. That are big and like, you know, filled with tourists and all that stuff. So I'm saying that kind of goes to show you that they're more like spread out and they're willing to engage with other types of people and how does that help you in managing or becoming a CEO? Obviously, you know, it helps you relate to other people more and spend time more with other people. I think Asians, East Asians really like to build within themselves. That's kind of what we're getting at. Yeah. I do think that like different types of Indians are different from what I noticed, you know, like Punjabis to like Hindu Brahmins to like, you know, this or that. Like, you know what I mean? Like some variation depending on like, which zone you're from. But for the most part, it's not uncommon to see like Indians from India at the black club, at the white club, even at an Asian EDM club, like, and to not even feel like that's weird at all. Yeah. I mean, not to say, I mean, there's not that many really Indian nightclubs or bars, you know, that like- I think they're more like linking up at like weddings or, you know, festivals. No, it's true. They make their weddings like a weekend nightclub. But point number four, guys, a lot of the Indian CEOs that we're referring to are Hindu Brahmin, and that is the top cast. Now, although India has done away officially with the caste system, being a Brahmin still kind of is like great for your self-identity. It makes you very confident. Oh yeah. I mean, for long story short, guys, it's almost like ranking in the military. You know how there's like, you know, regular soldier and then a specialist and then an army ranger and then like a Navy SEAL type, you know, like in terms of like a hierarchy. I guess that would be like saying like, I'm a Navy SEAL. But not of like being fighting in a war but like of being a smart like company runner. Yeah. It's like saying like, I am from the noble class or something similar to that. Maybe it's not as quite clear cut. But yeah, I mean, a lot of the Indian CEOs, Brahmin, they come from good families or a high self-identity at least, you know, something that give you that push and that motivation. Dude, I think a lot of it has to do with self-identity when it comes to like reaching for like C-suite because if you have to dream it to even have a chance and even everybody who dreams of reaching that like, you know, like major, major C-suite level of a company, of an American company, like especially if you're a foreigner or somebody who like doesn't look white or whatever, like the people who started that company, you have to truly believe you can do it to even have a chance and everybody who even dreams can't get there. True story, I'm at a college party many, many years ago and outside is this Brahmin Indian kid who's from India and he's talking to me and this is the first time I ever had this conversation. He's like, yeah man, I'm a Brahmin, I'm of the Brahmin class and you know, like I'm very no, I'll never, you know, I never cheat people. And I was just like, dude, this crazy that you're like, you're telling me about like where you stand and your hierarchy. I'm not saying every kid's like this. I'm just saying that I never had this conversation with anybody else. It is true, these like self-identities because you're like, oh, our people don't double cross people. Well, then you're probably in your brain, you can be like, oh, I'll never double cross anybody. Obviously it's not a hundred out of a hundred. I'm just saying that, you know, these things matter. Anyway, point number five, Andrew, Indians are perceived to have a culture of warmth but they, I mean, it's probably real too. It's probably not just a perception whereas East Asians are considered very stoic and cold. That is the larger perception. Listen, you're talking about yoga, you know, praying, Buddhism, even Bhangra, you know, dancing. Like that's very rhythmic dance. I mean, these are things that like people in the West do think are cool. You know, they love like, yeah, Indian food and yoga. I mean, you know, there's yogis everywhere. Like every woman in the world does yoga now. You can even watch like the Asian-American movies when it's about Indian parents. It's like the discussions with the parents are so much more lively and comedic. You watch like Tiger Tail, Shang-Chi, some of the ways they be talking to kids like, son, you will never understand. I'm just like, oh my gosh, nobody would want a dad like that. That is super unworn, man, that's frigid. I mean, I would say overall Indians are more expressive too. Have you ever seen those clips of the Bollywood movies where they like slap somebody and then they fly like seven feet in the air? It's like comical, but it's funny and it's entertaining. Dude. And it's ridiculous. I'll tell you this interesting story. Our dad had a study group when he was majoring in electrical engineering in America, right? In his undergrad. And he was in a Indian study group. And I remember our dad used to have his old Indian friends from college come over when we were young. And man, I'll tell you this. They would just tell you stories and teach you how to like scare people. And they're like, always like, hey man, if anybody like tries to attack you on the street, man, make sure you make this face or maybe do that. And sometimes it was good advice. Sometimes it was comedic advice. But I just remember getting a ton of advice from old Indian guys when I was younger. They like to communicate. Point number six, American companies when hiring Indian CEOs born in India, they don't really fear that the Indian CEO is going to steal the intellectual property and like take it back to India. As opposed to possibly hiring a Chinese CEO, there's always gonna be that low key fear that, oh, are they gonna go back to China and like use this technology for a Chinese company? For sure. I mean, I think that this one's very situational. I think that that fear still exists like 10 to 20% with like a Japanese or Korean CEO, especially if it's like of a white American company or whatever. But for sure, like you said, it doesn't exist for Indians. For Chinese, it might be like triple quadruple 10x as strong. I think it's like maybe a gigantic fear. And it is what it is. These geopolitical espionage things, they do have an impact even in the private sector, especially dependent Andrew on what zone we're talking about, Andrew. If you are Chinese born and you wanna work in aerospace and defense, you wanna work on military contractor, you will be capped in terms of your clearance level that you can be like legally given. Oh, for sure, for sure. Guys, point number seven is that despite the accent, Indians actually have a probably better command of the English language than a lot of East Asians who learn English. And obviously, guys, India was a British colony so they have had English for many, many years. So even though they do have strong accents sometimes, like just the way they talk and the way they're able to express and emote and with the intonation, it is very strong. Yeah, I mean, you're looking at like second, third, fourth, fifth generation English speakers versus a lot of East Asians. I'd say probably our like first generation. Like they're probably the first people in their family, generation of the family to fluently speak English and be able to like communicate with Western people. So one's more like, yeah, you know, I'm glad that I'm able to communicate with the Western people. That is great because you can get what I'm saying but there's a limited amount of like a relatability in that tone. Some people are gonna call it robotic whereas versus like buddy, buddy, buddy. Let me tell you like what the points of what you're talking about, like what I agree with you. And then after that, I'm going to elaborate on the points where I disagree with you. David, David, I would like to debate you for another two hours about this, all right? We've got to go back and forth because this is how we talk. Well, yeah, obviously we know, and this is no diss, it's just that, you know, if you've had the English language in your country longer, you're gonna speak it differently. But not only that, that means you've been able to consume English things. So that means those English cultural products or whatever are able to go into your brain and the, you know, just more relatability too. You could watch English language movies and reference it with your coworkers or whatever. Point number eight, Andrew, this one's a little bit of one that people don't mention as much, but like Indians are also in a weird way more Western looking than East Asian people. Obviously from what I know, I did the research like Indians, if you were to categorize them are actually in a weird way categorized as like Western people. Like their bone structure is considered Western whereas anything East of the Himalayas, the bone structure is gonna be considered like a, I guess a Mongoloid. Yeah, so I think what people are referring to when they say this, and we're not saying like Indians are like white people at all, of course not. A lot of North Indians in particular, some of them classify themselves as Caucasian. Caucasian does not mean their white Anglo-Saxon European. It just means that they're more from like that center part of the world, a little bit more like Arabian. I'm telling you, Nikki Haley. Yo. Nikki Haley. Tim Grover. Nikki Haley and Tim Grover. Guys, Tim Grover is Punjabi. Nikki Haley is Punjabi. They are Indian. They identify as Indian, but I'm just saying they do not look Indian at all. They do not look like, listen, you have Aziz Ansari, you got Mindy Kaling, you got Nikki Haley and Tim Grover, okay? I'm just saying there's a wide range of looks and some Indian people look way more Western and it might help them in certain cases. Obviously, we know in entertainment, David, that even the East Asians who get put on often look a little bit more Western. They slightly got that. At least the good looking ones, yeah. Yeah, the good looking ones got to have the slightly bigger nose, you know, look a little more Western, even if they're full Asians. So I'm just saying, this might not be a huge factor when hiring. I think it's definitely a factor, but it's not a even like top five factor. Anyways guys, see, that's some stuff that a lot of other people don't want to bring up, okay, but I had to watch two hours of a podcast between different Indian and East Asian professors talk about this. Anyways, so David, I think that we finished the eight main reasons why. You guys let us know in the comments down below if there's other reasons that we left out that you think are significant or you can expound upon any of the points that we had, but what can like Asian Americans who are wondering like, why are there so many like Indian born bosses? Like, how do- Well, I think it has to do with like, really East Asians have to understand that we can't only look at the Western world. East Asia actually has the most companies, I think in the Fortune 500 of any other region of the world. And obviously for a long time, it was Western Europe in the US, but now East Asia sort of like makes up most of the companies. So you would just work at one of those Asian Asian companies instead of thinking like you would ever be able to rise up the top of a Western company. What I'm trying to say is like the only people wondering how they can become the CEO of a white founded company would be an Asian American because we are thinking like, man, I could never go back to Asia and like rise up companies where everybody looks like me. Yeah, I think that oftentimes when you're an immigrant, you're kind of more confident in who you are. Cause you know who you are. You're like, I'm an immigrant. That's it. So if I make it in America, great. But if I don't and I have the opportunity to go back to the motherland- Right, I get a fire off. I want to do that and I get a dope ass offer. I'm going to do that. But as Asian Americans, because we feel like we're connected to this land and we're stuck here. So we're like, okay. So the only company I'm going to rise to the top of is JP Morgan. How do I do that? Like, I can't, you know, you can't never conceive that idea. You know- Oh, I don't even think that if you're East Asian right now at a company like whatever, you know, big old dog financial company, you're probably thinking eight out of 10 level might even be barely out of reach. You know, maybe you're thinking, I'm stopping hitting the cap at seven, maybe eight, but like nine and 10 out of 10, you're thinking none of us are getting in. And if any of us are getting in, they're from India. Yeah, but I do also want to note guys that the Indian CEOs are not heading any like financial institutions. We are talking about mostly tech, also Pepsi, some products, you know, Chanel. So these are not financial. I think the financial world is still very, very old school, old boy club, you know, where it's probably going to be Americans for a while. But when it comes to these tech companies, man, yeah, I mean, Indians are doing it, man. Shout out to them. They're sending their top talent over here and their top talent is amazing. It's top tier. So I got two takeaways. One is for the first question, which is regarding rising up companies as an entrepreneur, not an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is breaking off and doing your own thing. Eric, you end with Zoom or whatever. Entrepreneur is rise very, very insightful. And then I will say this as a quick aside from the original question Andrew was saying, are they even considered Asian? I think that this video made us do a lot of research that I hadn't really done before. And it made me understand that it's like, I do think of course, you know, we're all from Asia, you know, they're from, Indians are from like the West of the Himalayas. And just to address a real quick question that I think could be like 10 other videos, are Asians Indian? I think of course they are their South Asian, you know, but they're from the West of the Himalayas. Obviously people who are considered like Asian Asian in American terms are usually from the East of the Himalayas and we all have like, you know, the black hair and the yellow skin or whatever. But it does kind of go to show me that also like a lot of the actual cultural upbringing is actually pretty different as well. So I do think that we go through some of the same immigrant challenges and being perceived as foreigners, but obviously a lot of the coaching on the backend is quite different. Yeah, definitely guys. I think these type of topics deserve even more discussion and we'll probably make more videos down the road, but hopefully this video was insightful for you. Please let us know in the comments down below what you think, do you agree with our points? Are there any that we missed? Do you want to expound on any of our points? Maybe we left out some details, but please let us know in the comments down below, hit that like button, click subscribe and thank you so much for watching the hot pop boys. One last thing, Andrew. We have to talk about a quote that you pulled from one of the articles you read where it said, listen, this is their takeaway. The bamboo ceiling isn't a Pan-Asian phenomenon, but rather an issue of cultural congruence for East Asians. I'ma leave that right there, everybody. Soak that in. Thank you so much for watching and until next time, we out. Peace.