Bigger isn’t always better

The Tech bullies made us believe that bigger and better solutions always come from their stable, and you can contribute to it, but minimally, in fringes only.

That was the norm when I started working in the tech industry in the early 2000s. The Indian software industry was mostly termed a service industry, which helps the biggies from the real Silicon Valley with support functions. The greater stuff cannot come from here, as we were made to believe that we don’t have the wherewithal and resources to do it.

In those times, we went through reams and reams of prewritten code to fix a bug or enhance something. There was a significant process involved when something new was to be added to these ancient systems, mainly from scepticism about our capability to add it and overconfidence that the already available systems were spectacular to be changed. During those times, we all would operate as decided and go ahead, but resentment settled in as this was restrictive.

Years later, there is a feeling called Schadenfreude when seeing these biggies sweat over their significant investment and large claims over their AI advancement. In a way, seeing these as the house of cards, which they made us all believe, that they were better is a joy.

After the release of DeepSeek R1 and Alibaba’s Qwen2.5, which have remarkable capabilities, as they claim and as industry experts have validated, it’s a feeling of vindication. Didn’t we always “ tell you so”? Why play the big daddy when we all can be contributive and nurturing?

Now, the situation is evident on the tech front or getting clearer. Big Seven needs to take some lessons from the Far East to cut some costs and a lot of hype.

Other arenas will also be clearer in the coming days. As the wise say, sometimes what goes up has to come down.