Old truths, fresh startups

Startups are not confined to yuppies, bursting with irrepressible technology ideas

Reportage and commentaries on startups attract huge interest, creating as unreal an image about startups as Bollywood and cricket. In a Martian’s reading of our newspapers, start-up founders need not bother about a path to profits, they should chase something called GMV, and losses over long periods of time are alright. Startup founders are considered innovative, youthful and energetic, untrammelled by the bureaucracy of ‘grownup’ companies and PSUs. Within five years, they magically create companies with a value that takes the grownups 50 years to achieve. However, these test-tube-cultured adults also cry like infants, loud and shrill, for example, for