Note to our customers and partners:
Before I get bashed up by some of our customers or partners (who use our product, Vembu StoreGrid, for their online/onsite backups) who are reading this blog to learn more about our company, our product, the online backup or the SaaS/MSP industry, I promise that the next two posts of mine will be related to our business. Please bear with me for letting out my frustrations in this blog. I am deeply passionate about some of these topics – especially how more and more government intervention in our lives is the root cause of most of the problems we are facing today, including the long and deep recession that is staring at us today.
Note to everyone:
I express my views with no malice towards anyone. I use harsh language to drive home the gravity of the situation. My harsh language is not to be taken personally. I strongly believe most of us as individuals are good natured and will not cause intentional harm to others. That is another reason I strongly feel we need to get out of the system which breeds crooks out of even the good natured individuals amongst us. If we do not strongly question these when we can, the day is not too far when our right to question will also be taken away in the name of “national interest”.
I am constrained to point out yet another example of government excess. In the name of protecting India’s reputation and in the name of protecting the 50,000Â plus employees at Satyam Computers and in the name of protecting the entire Indian IT industry, the government of India has stepped in and taken charge at Satyam Computers. They have disbanded the current board at Satyam Computers and appointed a new board to ensure continuity of operations at Satyam Computers. It is a surprise to me that the government has such a power in the first place. It is worth noting that the shareholders of Satyam Computers were not consulted at all by the government. It is also worth mentioning that all the “spineless industry experts” are praising this government intervention into a private company’s affairs as the best thing since slice bread. By my definition, anyone, whatever reputation he/she has built for himself/herself over the years, who accepts the board position at the government created board at Satyam is a “crumbs picker”. It does not matter they all come with good intentions. They are crumbs pickers because I consider it immoral for the government to intervene in a private company’s affairs. It is another matter that the previous board members, appointed primarily by the founders and approved by the shareholders, were crumbs pickers too. But they at least had the approval of the shareholders even if it is specifically for picking crumbs thrown at them by the founders rather than representing and protecting the shareholders. So it is the shareholders who should pay the price, which they have already done. Having learnt their lessons, the shareholders should get together and decide on how to run Satyam Computers. It is none of government’s business to intervene in the name of protecting the national reputation or Satyam’s employees.
The government’s role should only be to make sure the fraud perpetrated by the founders is investigated impartially and the guilty are brought to book. That’s it. Nothing more. The shareholders who are the rightful owners of Satyam Computers will have the full right to decide the future of Satyam Computers. If they want to run down the company by appointing another set of crumbs pickers to the board and crooks in the management, let them exercise their right.
Why am I so against the government intervention even, in this case, if it appears to be “good for everyone”?
Because the same power the government uses for the “good of everyone” would be misused when it suits them. As I said in my last post, “Crooks are taking over this world; How long do we just settle for the crumbs”, when government gets more and more power the biggest of the crooks in the society will end up in the government because that is where it is the most profitable and the risk of getting caught is also minimal. Let me clarify how the same power used by the government for the “good of everyone” can be misused by the crooks who eventually are in the government. The process always goes like the following:
Just think for a moment why everyone is praising the government intervention in Satyam Computers affairs. That is because it is impossible to argue against anyone who is saying that “Satyam’s employees have to be protected at all cost” and that “India’s reputation should be protected at all cost”. These are what I call “motherhood slogans” for obvious reasons. We all know that this “motherhood slogans” are what is successfully employed by almost all crooked politicians to usurp more and more power onto themselves so that they can enrich themselves at the expense of others. So the power to disband a board of a private company and appoint its own board will be misused one day by the crooked politicians to destroy a genuine and honest company probably at the urging of competitive businesses run by crooked businessmen. And these crooked politicians will use all the “motherhood slogans”, like “national reputation or even national security”, at their disposal to destroy an honest business. So, as I keep saying the best way to protect honest people and businesses from crooks is to have a system which automatically makes these crooks powerless where ever they are and whatever they do. And that system is the “true free market” system which by definition would be minimal government and maximum freedom and power in the hands of individual citizens.
I think you don’t bother about the innocent people who are working for years in the organisation and their families. unfortunately if you are one of the 53K people, then you would have understood the pain of the people and their families. If the governament have been not superseeded the board of satyam, the remaining directors of the current management would have been made further damage to the organisation as well as its 53k employees. So dear, u don’t think like a person fuderalism.
instead of all this, I liked your comments about systematic improvement to curb all these things not to happen. every one wanted that the system should improve and law to be implemented to stop all these. But unfortunatly the law should be imposed by persons, as the persons tend to do all these malpractise in a way of earning rnasom amounts.
Till day the minute befor the scam confessed, Ramalinga Raju and his brother were REal Raju’s in the heart and soul of AP and india also.
friend whatever the governmaent did as of now, that is fantastic and need more steps to imrove the situation
Umashankar,
Thanks for your comment. I think you completely missed my point. I never said the 53,000 employees at Satyam should all suffer. You are assuming that the government stepping in is better than the shareholders (who learnt their lessons the hard way) stepping in and try to save Satyam. More often than not government intervention will result in making the problem worse. Remember the customers of Satyam will have the final say in this. I strongly believe the shareholders will do what it takes to convince the customers to continue doing business with Satyam. With the government there is a chance that it will all end well in this case. But as a general principle government should stay away from interfering. Finally, remember that the government could also have appointed Lalu, Paswan, Amar Singh, Sibu Soren etc. to the board. Then you know what the result would be. That is why it is bad when you give up the rights to the government. Hope you understand my point.
Sekar
Seems the Government has taken over Satyam mainly for investigation, identifying the culprits and bringing them to books. Since the Chairman himself has admitted there has been fraud, and the fraud being of such huge magnitude, it is the responsibility of the government to protect the employees, shareholders, reputation of Satyam and certainly the reputation of India Inc. before the world. I believe, the government will investigate under the present Board of Directors and after setting the house in order, hand it over to the Board of choice of the share holders.
Since the government is only in the stage of investigation, it is too early for anyone to comment on the merit of their involvement. Let us be patient and watch. It is also in the interest of the shareholders, employees and the general public the Government has taken this action. Anyway, we have only professionals on the new board and there are no politicians. That itself is a good sign and let us wait and watch. – Vimal
Vimal,
In this case you may be right. But I do not care about the reputation of the people in the current board. As you know even the previous board was filled with people of repute and they were just rubber stamps not doing their jobs. Or to put it harshly they were all there for the crumbs thrown by the Rajus. Remember, until Raju came out in the open and confessed, he was also a man of repute. I will not trust anyone. Only the shareholders decide who they want to trust because they are the ones taking the risk here. Its their money at stake. Though we can all sympathize with the employees, shareholders who took the risk with their money get to decide how to rescue Satyam and not anyone else.
You should also understand that even if all ends well here (lets hope it does), it does not mean what the government did was correct. They can use this as a precedent and start misusing this same power to destroy some other company or even take over a company. These kinds of things have happened so often here where government blatantly does things so that some politicians can enrich themselves. Hope you appreciate my in-principle opposition to the government intervention.
Sekar