The future of IT: Questions and Answers

Doomsday predictions about India’s nearly $100 billion technology sector are nothing new. And Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of the country’s fourth-largest software company, HCL Technologies, has been ringing the warning bells ever since he was a top executive in the industry. Nayar, who now spends time leading Sampark Foundation, a philanthropic organisation working to help millions of school kids in India get smarter at math and languages, met me in Delhi for this episode of Outliers.

“If you’re a young engineer listening to this podcast, I would say you should be very worried,” he tells me. “I do not buy this argument of all will be well.”

As we flagged in October last year, Indian IT may not be on its deathbed yet, but the threat of disruption is clear and present.

In a freewheeling chat with Nayar, we try and find answers to questions about the future of Indian IT, ill-timed activism on the part of some founders, and discuss why those working in the sector need to take charge of their careers, urgently.