Welcome!

Welcome to my inaugural post. Here I am, in Bangalore (Bengaluru before the Brits renamed it):



The first things I saw when leaving the airport were:

1) My driver - A Catholic Indian man who spoke a little English and handed me his card and 2 reference letters from former passengers regarding his excellent driving and tour guiding skills.
2) Stray dogs - There will be a longer post about the strays later.
3) A goat herder wearing a turban and sarong, carrying an actual staff.
4) Women walking around in beautiful saris - There will be a longer post about this later as well.
5) A gigantic "Yahoo" (as in the internet company) sign.

I'll start with the Yahoo sign because the presence of Corporate America here is so striking to me. On the ride from the airport to my hotel we passed offices for IBM, Dell, Yahoo, Amazon, and Microsoft. Bangalore is like the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney Land, but for American companies. In the US, these companies are spread out from coast to coast with thousands of miles separating them. Here, they are all a short car ride apart at most.

And that's why I'm here. To take my place in the tide of globalization that I hope will improve the lives of India's and America's citizens in the long run. To help a team of Indians build software that will eliminate the rote tasks and tedium in other people's jobs, making them more efficient and giving them back some of their time. I'm here to work.

But I do have some free time, and that's what I'll mainly post about in this blog, since blogging about one's job is one of the surest ways to get fired!